Dear Editor,
This has happened before. Specifically from 1964 to 1992. It is happening again. From 1992 to present. The phenomenon is simple; a major ethnic group in this nation gets power and forgets or ditches its moral compass. It then happens these same people turn a blind eye to, justify or participate in the unfair acts and egregious conduct committed by their own ethnic group in power.
The constant maximisation of waste, inefficiency and corruption is dismissed or excused simply because the executors are of their ethnic group. It is some form of power-induced amnesia. Many justify it under the ‘we time now’ banner.
We have a big problem in this country. The problem is with Guyanese people jettisoning their morality for race-based power and ethnic aggrandisement. When the PNC was raping and destroying this country from 1964 to 1992, Indian-Guyanese claimed a moral superiority. Now the PPP is raping this nation, African-Guyanese claim moral superiority. But where were/are these two groups and their moral superiority when monsters prowl? They couldn’t be found because they were busy running around celebrating their newfound ‘we time.’ They were busy watching wrongdoing run wild while they stood silent because the wrongdoer was one of theirs.
Race consumes this nation. There is serious fear at play. Many Indians under the PPP and Africans under the PNC somehow believe they cannot respectively condemn an Indian or African political thief while they are in power because such public castigation for some bizarre reason helps the other ethnic group by weakening their ethnic group. Those who have influence in party affairs use fear to achieve this.
You must not publicly undress Comrade X as a thief because the other group will see him as a thief and most critically, will see the party as a safe haven for thieves thereby weakening the party. Comrade X is a thief – end of matter.
In this nation of hypocrites, the political conmen have defined and trapped the morality of the ethnic masses they patrol. The claims of integrity, truth, incorruptibility, dignity and decency amidst the carnage of this nation are bogus. Nobody says don’t vote for your own political party. As reprehensible as it is, nobody could prevent you from voting from your own ethnically-based party. A vote is not a vow of silence.
Someone can be honest and moral enough to expose the corrupt and wrong within their political party. Or fearlessly tell the truth about the excesses of those of their own group holding political power. They shouldn’t hide behind race and hypocrisy and then run to America, Canada, the Caribbean and Europe when they can’t take the corruption, waste, bureaucracy and unfairness from their own government elected by their hand marking the X any more. They shouldn’t run and let thieves ‘thief’ more. Stand up and face the truth. Condemnation does not have to be shouting from the rooftops. It can be using their vote to condemn those who shame the party.
Racial group-think has destroyed the moral fabric of this nation. Grab everything is the motto. All that vowing after 28 years and 18 years respectively in the wilderness that you cannot become this goes right out the window as soon as the power arrives and the money starts dangling.
All those promises made are broken. The moral fabric of this nation cannot be repaired unless wrong is seen as wrong, regardless of whom is in power. Until the ability to see wrong for wrong and not within the prison of ethnicity, this nation is doomed. For every vote given to a morally bankrupt individual, the children have been robbed of their future.
The people of this nation shall reap what they sow. The genie is out of the bottle. Those who really benefit are very few. The vast majority of Indian-Guyanese under the PPP struggle every day. At least some Africans got the gumption to say enough is enough when Walter Rodney rode into town. The bogeyman PNC is in the grave.
The AFC is still floundering. The time for the PPP supporters to make their moral statement is now. That said, at some point in this godforsaken nation of ethnic nabobs some truth has to emerge. Too many in this nation just can’t handle the truth.
Yours faithfully,
Michael Maxwell