Dear Editor,
This official announcement of no ‘lampy pampy’ pirating of textbooks is an indication that the Government of Guyana is indifferent to the values of a modern globalized economy and the sensitivities of societies in it. It sacrifices the nation and people’s image in the international arena where the right of a person to own the benefits of his or her work are sacred. It is an indecent thing and once again the Government of Guyana has fallen on the other side decency. We have all been indecent but when a government seems incapable of being decent it is time to act against indecency.
A photocopied text is a substandard work and poverty is no excuse for governments setting low standards. This is a reminder that the Government of Guyana has demonstrated over the last 20 years pathologically poor standards in the administration of the nation’s affairs. The scams, we know are all testimony to this penchant for the substandard. When this pathology is combined with the propensity to enrich a few at the expense of the many, and when those in power have the appearance of a historical ethnic advantage in a one man one vote winner-take-all Westminster democratic parliamentary system, then this is the kind of official arrogance that results. Martin Carter was right, “All are involved all are consumed”; all will suffer because of the backward arrogance. Look, the reality is that decency is under attack and decency has no race. All decent Guyanese – Indians, Afrikans, Portuguese, Amerindians Douglas, Chinese and Europeans – have to respond to the crisis in our country. I thought that it was this same government which was boasting how Guyana had withstood the world financial crisis and that the economy was doing so well.
The opposition, by the way, can make it illegal for a public official to use public funds to purchase pirated textbooks for use in public schools; they have the power in parliament to pass bills against piracy of all intellectual and other property.
We all must band together, not in a fight against the PPP/C, but in a fight for upliftment and decency.
Yours faithfully,
Jonathan Adams