Dear Editor,
Whenever present-day politicians in Guyana are caught in deadlock in deciding the direction our nation should be pointed in, the names of Forbes Burnham and Cheddi Jagan come up. Today, the politicians in Guyana continue to blame Guyana’s failure on those two leaders. Justification after justification is made to save face and deceive the ordinary people.
It has never occurred to them that, perhaps, if they present those two leaders who are seen as the fathers of our nation, to the present and future generations, not as they were but how they should have been, race relations would be helped and division minimised. But some may argue that would be distorting historical truth. I say, it would benefit the nation in a positive way. As it is now, history is used in the negative. We see it every day.
The nation continues to spiral as poverty grips the majority, crime increases and brutality escalates. Racism lingers amongst the confused majority; they don’t know whether to love or hate each other. The political leaders offer no solution. How can they, when they are the orchestrators. So, they tell the hard-working and simple people about socialism, communism and capitalism. Their intellectual spindoctors who went to universities in America, England, Canada and Russia, are good at presenting to the public those ideological concepts. The people listen, not having a clue what they are talking about. So they leave hoping those sophisticated outpourings mean that their living standards will be improved. Things worsen by the day.
I was eleven years old when Mr Burnham passed away. I have never seen him in person. I was told a story that he had once visited Linden when food was short and people all across Guyana were suffering and rebelling. I am told he was a captivating orator. Not captivating enough for a trade union man named Walter Richardson. As he pontificated to the hungry workers about capitalism and socialism, Walter stood up and said, “Mr President, the people do not want to know about that,” and he lifted a bag with dirty rice in it and continued, “Tell them about, livism.”
So, today I ask the leaders of this nation to stop playing politics with the lives of a brutalised and impoverished working class. This is a slightly different time to then and even as we seek peace and a unified Guyana, where the races can live together with genuine respect for each other, we look on through the lens of objective vision, and see racial imbalance and the empowerment of one over the other.
We know that one is being played against the other, so that your power grip can be maintained as the wealth of Guyana is shared amongst a few. The voting pattern reflects the fears of a confused and uncertain people, who buy into the concocted stories of two leaders who are projected as the predecessors of doom. One against the other.
I cannot, in the simplest of language, fail to ask all of us, especially the younger generation of Blacks and Indians to let us reverse this trend for the sake of ourselves and those to come after. Let us choose democracy over hypocrisy. Let us ignore the colour of the face of leadership, so we can see the shades of corruption and mismanagement. Let the power of the vote reflect that.
Violence should not become a means to an end in this new dispensation. Equality must never be compromised. Altruism must be the hallmark. Respect our watchword. We have the power to avoid conflicts and abort violent uprisings and internecine wars. We must be true to ourselves. I implore all of us to take this period to be involved in this transformation.
If we embraced the values of respect and we see each other as equals then the principles that guide us can only bring peace and a one Guyana. This is what I mean by 2011 being a make or break year for Guyana.
Yours faithfully,
Norman Browne
