Dear Editor,
The current, apparently intractable, wrangling in Guyana’s body politic presents a most disturbing hopelessness for us ordinary folks, regular citizens who are anxious to see our ‘dear land of Guyana’ progress to its optimal level.
Where does one turn, where do we look for the “promised land”?
Perhaps our leaders can draw lessons from other societies, communities, countries that faced similar ‘dead ends’. For example, Peter Senge, renowned MIT professor, writing in the book titled: “Presence” described how the whole history of change in South Africa was a remarkable example of people creating a different future together by using ‘scenario-building exercises’ which involved people from all racial, ethnic, cultural, political and similar sub-groups thinking and talking about alternative futures.
They eventually came up with four scenarios: “Ostrich” was the one in which the then current white South African government put its head in the sand to avoid facing problems; “Lame Duck” was the other where the powers of the new black government were so strictly limited by constitutional instruments that its power to act was crippled; “Icarus” was the third whereby the new government instituted economic reforms that were so radical that, like Icarus, it burned itself by flying too near to the sun; the fourth scenario was called “Flamingo” which no one particularly liked because Flamingos typically take off very slowly; but Flamingos also take off together…..so, as the groups thought through these different scenarios, they became convinced that the only viable way forward was the Flamingo way.
Peter Senge concluded that while no one can be certain about how much these “scenarios” influenced the changes in South Africa, he firmly believed that they had a major impact in shaping the thinking that allowed the new government to hold the country together. Can we develop our own scenarios and come up with our own solutions?
Yours faithfully,
Nowrang Persaud
