Dear Editor,
I have to commend your columnist Shaun Michael Samaroo for his fine description of our disposition in relation to our present state of affairs at home in his column, ‘Why we migrate’ (SN, July 12). The brother didn’t miss a beat and was smack on target: sharp, accurate, lucid, and simply factual – no inventions, beating around or dressing. While his reprimand of us for “our national state of passive resignation, as we carry on the status quo with hardly a sense of urgency, vision or passion… and fail to nurture a national spirit of belief in a Guyana dream” is in order, it was also a kind of defence plea. He wrote on behalf of every patriotic Guyanese when he mentioned, “We lack leaders who speak to us, stirring our hearts and minds as Guyanese.”
His hammer caught the nail flush on the head when he further stated: “Our political landscape continues to perpetuate factured, cracked and uninspiring leadership… parliament… seems more a crab-barrel bar room than a place for mapping the nation’s vision and purpose.” And here he is twice as correct; I leap to agree with him as he further stated: “We fail to cultivate in the heart of every citizen a sense of belonging… if only we could rewrite the national conversation, if we could inspire the market vendors and the public square to see a Guyana nation moving forward, each of us feeling that sense of possibility in the air.” Yes sir, I’m with you.
If only we had something remotely near the recently concluded Diamond Jubilee celebration, maybe, just maybe – who knows.
Yours faithfully,
Frank Fyffe