Dear Editor,
The UN General Assembly declared the year 2011 to be the International Year for People of African Descent on December 18, 2009. The year aims to strengthen international, national and regional cooperation to benefit the people of African descent, and to recognize and promote their political, economic, social and cultural contributions from their diverse heritage and culture. We are already in May, a few weeks away from the first half of this year. There has not been any significant project that could positively affect the development of African communities. I am not talking about handing out a few pittances or repairing a building or erecting a monument in a black community. I mean something more enduring and inherently progressive. I am aware that the Government of Guyana has a national programme to promote the contributions of African- Guyanese to the development of this nation. Black communities continue to wait on the unfolding of that programme for what it is worth.
Through the Atlantic slave trade, our foreparents were brought into these parts of the world and contributed significantly to shaping it. Yet, we remain at the bottom of the economic ladder.
Therefore, the government’s programme could never be enough to bring real recognition to our continued contributions to nation-building in general, and the development of African- Guyanese, in particular. Inevitably, it is left to us, Africans, to take the course of our development firmly into our own hands.
It is in this sense that, I believe the call by Tacuma Ogunseye for shared governance is a sensible one at this juncture of our political history. It draws attention to the realities in black communities and the need for all African-Guyanese to collectively demand a more equitable distribution of the national wealth of this country by the regime within the context of a shared political system.
The existing system facilitates and encourages glaring economic inequalities and other excesses by this government. State corruption parades shamelessly in every corner of our society. How else could some officials account for the vast amount of wealth they now possess? The lack of a proper Integrity Commission also makes the point on corruption in Guyana. With no restraint in place, state corruption continues to be detrimental to black communities. This has wider implications for the progress of our society.
Tacuma Ogunseye’s call is therefore meaningful and pragmatic; it should be embraced by all who want growth, development and progress in this country. African-Guyanese must make that demand in the most appropriate way that attracts the attention of a government that appears oblivious to the plight of many black communities. Talking by itself will not achieve change. If that were the case then we would have had change ages ago. But we are still crammed in the narrowness of a lopsided political system with a constitution that places everyone else at the mercy of the government and its agents.
Some have already contested the notion of shared governance arguing that it would not put an end to race-based politics and inequalities. That might be so. We do not know because we have never tested it. What could not be successfully contested is that it will provide the framework that can initiate political economic and social reforms that could benefit all Guyanese.
Notwithstanding that, I believe that what black communities lack the most is money and wealth. A causal observation of any black community will reveal that the stranglehold of poverty is affecting their growth and development. The high number of dilapidated buildings, poor roads, water and sanitation are manifest expressions of that poverty. There are a number of reasons for this I shall discuss two.
First, our attitude towards money is bad. Look at the way we spend our hard-earned money in entertainment. Almost every show at the Providence Stadium is filled to capacity with young and not so young African-Guyanese. Every show young Blacks spend thousands of dollars they can hardly afford. We entertain ourselves at the expense of everything else, even our development.
Second, a large percentage of African-Guyanese work in the public sector; they are public servants. The government controls the public purse. Therefore, it decides how much these servants will be paid and how much they should be taxed. In this way, they do exert a great deal of power over the development of Blacks and influence the quality of their lives and communities.
One can argue that there are trade unions which negotiate with government, wages and salaries for workers. However, given the behaviour of the unions demonstrated at the last May Day rally, the divisions among them, and the fact that some of their leaders appear to have been bought out by the government one can hardly expect a decent challenge by these organizations to the unfairness in the national pay system.
As a result, the average public servant lives from pay cheque to pay cheque. It is a vicious cycle.
What is clear is that African-Guyanese desperately need a paradigm shift. African-Guyanese must get out of the public sector now. We need to begin to ‘re-image’ ourselves not as servants (public or otherwise) but as entrepreneurs. This is absolutely necessary for wealth creation and development.
One area that is immediately available to us is agriculture. There is a lot of history in the black community in this industry and much aversion to it, particularly by our young people but, there is enormous potential in this industry. Export markets are available for all kinds of non-traditional produce. However, we are too busy sitting behind desks burdened with loads of paperwork that we cannot see and exploit the potential in this sector. We love the sound of the names and status of certain positions in the public sector. Some of those very positions retard our growth and progress. We have to change that.
As a people, we need to invest time and resources in the agriculture industry; we need to go back to the land en masse. Black families and communities must become efficient economic units, generating wealth for real development through large-scale crop and animal husbandry. This will make us self employed, reduce the amount we spend in purchasing food, decrease our dependence on others to supply us with food and free up money for other investment activities. It will help in wealth generation in black communities.
A paradigm shift does call for rethinking the way we educate ourselves and our children. The social sciences are good and useful to society to analyze the dynamics of human behavior, but they really do not build advancing communities. Science and technology are among the main pillars upon which strong and progressive countries were built. Let us focus on those areas that can bring real wealth, development and change in our communities.
Yours faithfully,
Richard Drake
