Our nation stands as the only Cooperative Republic in the world. Guyana offers this 21st century global village a unique national economic model.
But we have lost the vision, as our body politic suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, ranging from a massive brain drain, to decades and decades of Government strangulation of the State media.
Maybe we lost the Cooperative spirit because State-controlled Co-ops under the Forbes Burnham government became so inept, inefficient and corrupt.
But even in Canada we see a thriving Cooperative sector, contributing in a significant way to civic society. However, it’s all citizen-operated, and not the State.
The Guyanese nation used to be world famous for its friendliness, its neighbourliness and its Garden City. These characteristics lend themselves well to a society of cooperatives.
The Guyanese body politic suffers from a bad syndrome, of harbouring a great dream, but failing to live out the practice of the vision. A telling metaphor of this is the grand idea to build the Mazaruni hydro project in the 1970s. We had a big dream. All that came out of it were piles of massive printed reports that now sit on shelves gathering dust, and heavy equipment rusting in ruin in the distant Mazaruni forest.
We dream, but we fail to build. So we become disillusioned and despondent. And, things fall apart.
The Guyanese body politic suffers from this syndrome, of being unable to conscientiously follow the path we set out for ourselves. We tend to get lost on the way of blazing a new trail.
Why is this so?
We see on the national stage the harsh rhetoric that electrifies our political landscape, cementing division and strife and rabid non-cooperation. The leadership, the head of the body politic, constantly engages in one verbal battle after another.
This breeds a society where such humane concepts as conscience and mercy become alien to the national body politic.
The body politic thus suffers from a heart that hardens under harsh words from our leaders.
The strife and quarrels among our politicians leave the national soul rotting in despair. The brutal strangulation of the State media under a stubborn government causes the national voice to go dumb. And the heart suffers grave injury because our leaders talk so harsh to each other, while they keep the people silent, with no access to their own newspaper, radio or TV station.
Nowhere is this heart-ache more evident than in the Justice system. This newspaper reported recently on the massive case backlog clogging the court system. Many experts have called for years for reform of the justice system.
In a lopsided justice system, where the majority of the population – who are poor – suffer from almost draconian judgements, and where the rich can pay their way to mercy, we cannot say as a society that we have a good heart.
And in fostering such a cold heart as a society, we affect the national conscience, our ability to live with cooperation, kindness, reaching out, reconciliation, healing, trust and forgiveness.
The Guyanese body politic thus demands urgent surgery, starting with the way our leaders engage in national conversations.
Already, President Ramotar signals a combative stance on the upcoming national Budget, and Opposition Leader David Granger says he does not “fear” new national elections, which could happen anytime under the hung Parliament.
As a people we suffer from this terrible lostness, this awful drifting away from our national visions. The vision of the world’s only national economic model based on the tripartite system of Cooperatives, Private Sector enterprises and Public Sector investments has fallen by the wayside.
When we won free and fair elections in 1992, then President Dr Cheddi Jagan offered this model as the way forward. What happened to that vision? What happened to the National Development Strategy that he initiated? What happened to his vision for a new Global Human Order? All these visionary ideals fell by the wayside.
Our body politic suffers from a rotting soul, a strangled voice and an eroding conscience.
One of the problems might be that we sit back and expect inept, selfish and greedy government politicians to conscientiously look after our interests.
For the past 50 years we see that they would not look after the society that elects them to office. This is why folks in the mining gateway, the town of Port Kaituma, went on a protest this week against lack of a road and other problems.
But we cannot just sit and wait for government handouts. In fact, the people have the awesome gift of this constitutionally embedded system, the cooperative movement.
Although the government lacks the vision, and may never, for example, set up a Ministry of Cooperatives, citizens in communities all across this nation could set up cooperatives as private, community-owned enterprises.
Co-ops could be set up to solve crushing local problems, especially social issues. Each community in this land could, for example, set up co-ops to revive and run community centres and recreation facilities for young people.
Co-ops could be set up to train local village folks in entrepreneurship. The University of Guyana could itself initiate co-ops across the country to bring its research and innovation ability to local communities.
This is the kind of leadership that the Guyanese body politic lacks. But, because we embody the unique vision of having a constitutionally guaranteed tripartite economic model, we the citizens can come together in cooperative movements to make a difference for our lives.
Funding for ventures could easily be sourced through international grants and aid, and from appeals to the Diaspora and the international cooperative movement.
The body politic suffers from a leadership crisis that affects its soul, its voice, and its conscience. But the citizens can implement the surgical relief that could make a difference, through a wave of citizen-initiated local cooperative movements.
Practising this vision would heal a gaping wound in the economic reality of our poverty-stricken, voiceless body politic.
Email: beingshaun@gmail.com
Writer’s website: thequalpedlife.com
