Dear Editor,
In Guyana, people love to party. Many would prefer to starve themselves or borrow money for the instant gratification of attending a Ne-Yo concert or a chutney show. Some save for these events for months in advance but see no utility in saving to buy something of value such as books for their children. But I can understand the need for entertainment in this nation. After all, poor people have to get up running every day for they are not the predators but the prey. They are squeezed every single day in countless ways to pay the taxman his due and to put food on the table. From my observations on numerous visits to Guyana, I simply do not know how people can salvage the strength day after day to engage in this herculean Sisyphean task. Who am I to say you should listen to an Akon or Ricki Jai on a CD rather than pay exorbitantly to watch him, thereby saving that money for something more pressing to your self-development. In Guyana, many would choose to scrounge to see a foreign artiste rather than save. To each his own.
But there is a bigger issue at play here. The government is using taxpayers’ money paid by all to fund entertainment for some. Government is entitled to use taxpayers’ hard-earned sweat, blood and tears collected religiously by the GRA to benefit some groups if the cost-benefit analysis shows some societal profit, or if such a benefit accrues eventually to the rest of society. Some entertainment accrues to the entire nation. A national exhibition or a national concert with local performers, for example. This is policy-making 101. For instance, a government development fund to a crime-ridden depressed area is a transfer of taxpayers’ dollars to a small group but the results of crime reduction and poverty alleviation go to the benefit of the general society. This government will collect US$500 million this year from all Guyanese. It has transferred some of the money in tax favours to big promoters to put on some shows. Is the government telling us that entertainment of some 20,000 people who attended these events to watch mostly headlining foreign acts is a good use of the Skeldon sugar factory worker or the Buxton vegetable farmer or the Rupununi ranch hand’s money? The government is giving promoters tax holidays who in turn still charge ridiculous ticket prices for these events, making stellar profits on the backs of ordinary Guyanese. Yet a small local promoter in Godwin Maxwell is hounded so terribly by the taxman that it ended in his death. This government has a diabolical history of favouring the rich over the poor.
There is more to this recent fiasco with Jamzone. We are heading to an election next year. Distract and appease voters with concerts and foreign acts like Mavado and Ne-Yo is the plan. Throw a party from now to election night and some Guyanese will forget the issues that hound them to oblivion every day. Look out for the government to sponsor more of these entertainment events in the coming year. For deprivation is a dangerous thing. It makes anything look like something that is everything. For the lure of instant gratification gets people talking.
Guyanese were talking for weeks about Jamzone while forgetting to talk about the reprehensible breakdown of their society. Over time as we get more cheap candy thrown at us and our lives become consumed by the next arriving second-grade artiste from overseas, we accept our struggles as our lot in life and stop thinking of ever changing it. At that very moment, we will have become eternally lost. If we aren’t already. I sincerely hope the Brazilians, Chinese and others eventually save us from ourselves.
Yours faithfully,
Michael Maxwell
