We show a profound lack, a deep abiding absence, of feeling the Guyanese nation’s heartbeat as our unfolding story, the Guyanese Story, even as we shape the global village with our presence on the world stage – at the United Nations, in CARICOM, in the Commonwealth, in our villages and backyards contributing ourselves to the world at large.
Seeing this perpetual designing purpose to our daily living becomes a necessary backdrop to how we feel about ourselves, how we approach encountering ourselves in this Guyanese nation. Were we to wake up every day with the conscious thought that we go out there to face each other in an emerging story of an emerging people making an emerging 21st century world, we would embrace each other with empathy, understanding, comprehension, reaching out.
In this world full of knowledge and technology and global unity of cultures, we would square our shoulders with great confidence, walking with a decided lift, our heads held high, our hearts beating full of Guyanese excitement for the great nation we purpose to construct.
Instead we see fractured dents in our national psyche, crass cuss outs gnawing holes in our hearts as we face each other with suspicion, distrust, vengeance in our hearts, sword ready to strike, hands refusing to surrender in goodwill.
We see each other across divides. It’s been so for all our 48 years of being a nation. We blamed the colonial masters for our plights and our illiteracy and our poverty and our lack of self-development.
We blamed the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) in the 1960’s and burned and rioted and shed each other’s blood.
We blamed 28 years of dictatorship election-rigging and the People’s National Congress (PNC) for our state of paucity as a people.
And again we blame the PPP.
We always blame those who govern us, not getting that those who govern us came out of us and indeed are us.
The Guyanese story is the story of our people, particularly those who shaped us, molded us, designed us to be how we are today.
Yet, we know so little of our first President, Sir Arthur Chung.
It’s quite common to single out Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, for example, as scapegoat extraordinaire to fling cuss outs at, or to blame President Donald Ramotar when a car crashes into a house at Bagotstown. One woman actually said, at the accident scene, “why Ramotar cyan’t mek dis road mo’ big”, and her companion let out a suck teeth. We laugh at such idiosyncrasies.
The Guyana Story unfolds, and were we only to encounter each other with authenticity, open hearts, goodwill and a willing attitude to listen to each other’s heart, we would make the kind of progress we want to make.
Take Home Affairs Minister Rohee, for example. Not only is he a senior Minister of Government, but he’s also General Secretary, in effect leader, of the ruling party. He is a powerful figure in our land. But how many of us take the time, utilize the wisdom and understanding and good sense, to get to know the heart of Mr Rohee?
It’s not uncommon to hear folks vilifying him. But a heartfelt conversation, open, authentic, full of listening and seeking the humanity behind the man, would reveal the story of Mr Rohee’s heart, how he grew up with the pain of his Mom dying when he was a young boy and his brothers and sisters moving from home to home, separated from each other; how he feels sadness now when he encounters children without mothers.
To encounter Speaker of the National Assembly, Raphael Trotman, and listen to him talk of his faith, of his sojourn to a church congregation meeting in Sophia every week engaged in amazing charity work in that community, of knowing how he meets with friends and associates at his office to pray for the work of the nation. Trotman, who feels a divine purpose to his national leadership, finds deep motivation in this look towards the heavens and the eternal.
In Khemraj Ramjattan, in Moses Nagamootoo, both Corentyne sons who grew to national stardom, we see the rural-urban story of the barefoot boy rising to polished manhood.
President Donald Ramotar, humble, wearing his heart on his sleeve, did not own a house till he was 48 years old, and now presides over the most stunning national housing programme in the Caribbean.
Opposition Leader David Granger, with his military discipline, his interest for history, his intellectual passion, mirroring that of late President Desmond Hoyte, what kind of upbringing made the man?
Who really is former President Bharrat Jagdeo? What influences shaped him, designed his ideas, made him so driven with ambition and energy and dogged determination?
In Attorney General Anil Nandlall and Finance Minister Ashni Singh, we harbour brilliant Queen’s College students who topped the country at the Caribbean Examinations Council and, like Forbes Burnham, won Guyana Scholarships and today lead in politics.
The Guyana Story, the story of Forbes Burnham, the rise of Dr Cheddi Jagan, the astonishing history of Janet Jagan, the sad Shakespearean tragedy of Dr Walter Rodney, the mystery of Arthur Chung, these fascinating biographies and histories and facts tell the story of Guyana.
And it’s imperative that we start looking at ourselves from this perspective, wanting to know, to learn, to empathize, to embrace each other, and to share in our stories, sitting around our warm and peaceful country, the Amerindian and the African and the Chinese and Portuguese and Mixed and Indian now a mixed nation of Anglo-Caribbean heritage and western values, sharing our stories, melting into one nation.
It’s time we see the Guyana Story, its rich beauty, its human heart beating, its Guyanese uniqueness leaping off the page with inspiring motivation.
The 21st century, this mediated world, is but a worldwide telling of stories, each person’s unique, each nation’s inspiring, with Google’s quest to own the world’s knowledge, to map the human story, leading the way.
It’s time the Guyana Story find its place on the bookshelves and airwaves of the mediated global village, this amazing story of the Guyanese people, told as it unfolds.