This is my final column after a year of commenting on current affairs in Guyana. Since my first column, published a year ago, people have been writing to me, some offering a weekly dose of political pessimism and others, simply saying thanks, because, according to one reader, I am “using my voice to resurrect the conscience of an immoral and shameless government.”
Of course, this would be incredibly difficult to do—resurrecting the conscience of any government, more so this government. This is a government whose grip on state control has led to a system of inequality, in which excessive political and economic power cloaks an elite few while the masses are impoverished. This is a government whose governance playbook has taught us that the rule of law does not apply to everyone. Silencing critics is strategic to governing with zero accountability and transparency, and attacking rather than protecting rights, including the right to free speech, is how you reinforce fear in a citizenry weakened by the ballot-style interpretation of democracy we have in Guyana.
When I was asked whether I wanted to do a column, I said, “yes,” emphatically. I had just returned home after two years away and the economic and social conditions in the country were as I remembered: unemployment was high, the minimum wage pitiful, and many people were still living in chronic poverty, while a select few were living really well. In addition, the political atmosphere was poisonous. I remember saying to a friend that maybe I could write and help to disinfect the place, but that is and still remains no easy task. How do you scrub away decades of political acrimony and strife, unbridled entitlement and corruption, and ethnic discrimination, all floating around us and working to impede the kind of real progress we are yet to achieve?
It’s a difficult question to answer, so I decided that I would use the column to answer it, one week at a time, while addressing important national issues. It didn’t work out as planned but I managed to get a few columns in that articulated my own vision for a better Guyana.
The first column tackled the issue of extra-judicial killings and was headlined, ‘Suspects and criminals have rights too.’ For this piece, I wanted to communicate what I was feeling when I picked up a copy of Stabroek News on October 13, 2013 and learnt that the police had gunned down two young men on South Road who were suspected criminals.
I didn’t expect everyone to agree with my views on the killings. What struck me though was how people, some of them friends, couldn’t see that the South Road executions were representative of an undemocratic police culture and larger systematic problems within the force. As the months went by, we learnt about the Colwyn Harding baton-rape allegation and, after this, the Russian-roulette interrogation of teenager Alex Griffith. I realised after the first column there was some level of interest in what I had to say, which resulted in me feeling a bit pressured. But as the weeks went by, there was no pressure, just outrage at just about everything I read in the news.
After three months, I had concluded that the column was an important contribution to the national conversation–well I told myself that anyway—and as a stakeholder I wanted to stay engaged and have my say in how this country is being governed.
But as time passed, I found myself consuming a series of disturbing news and something happened. I woke up one morning and had no desire to write. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, to go anywhere and I wanted to tune out from the news. The persons closest to me asked what was happening and I would only say: “I’m not sure.” I wasn’t sure, not until a week later.
This PPP/C Guyana is choking with so much apathy that after six months of doing the column and being back home, I was drowning in it; this is what happened. This was around the same time the Colwyn Harding case was in the news and vigils were being organised to protest the culture of violent policing, which has been allowed to take root here.
To escape how I was feeling and to stay positive, I turned to the one thing I always found comfort in—work and lots of it. I signed up for online courses, paid and unpaid, I restarted work on a Phd research proposal, and I looked into training opportunities in my graduate degree field.
By May 2014, I realised that the conversation I was contributing to was taking place on social media and not on the ground. When I went out to vigils and protests, I saw the same handful of people who no doubt understood that our democracy needs dissent and on occasions, demonstrations. I don’t expect everyone to understand or get it, but sometimes we have to assemble and collectively air our grievances.
Reflecting on the year, I didn’t get an opportunity to write about a lot of things, mainly due to the fact that some of it was too painful to address. For example, I read the Sade Stoby verdict and felt like the crude view of justice which masks our governance had somehow found its way into that trial. Even the judge had remarked that he found it “quite amazing” that the jury could not arrive at a decision. There were many other cases involving children which I struggled to zero in on because it was just too difficult.
Prior to announcing last month that I was ending the column, I thought about whether I had achieved what I had set out to do. Was I involved in the national conversations? Yes. Did I engage in the resistance I was writing about? Yes. Was I reaching people? Yes.
But I failed to get my own friends interested in my writings. If they were reading, they didn’t tell me about it. The consistent few who did read would call me every week or send a message to share their own views and this kept me going when I was sinking.
The majority of emails and the feedback I received came from people in the diaspora, some of whom left years ago but still have aspirations for a better Guyana. To the readers who called, wrote and commented over the last year, thank you. Some of the feedback was also negative. One man wrote to say that I was “politically aligned and too bitter” and another said that I was “racist.” No scars here, though.
Finally, to the readers, particularly those who are in Guyana, I would like you to take one thing away from my writings: The columns had a common theme running through them—resistance. And by resistance, I mean pushing back against the unjust system and speaking out against the daily violations occurring at home. I encourage you to resist! Resist! Resist!
Have a question or comment? Connect with Iana Seales at about.me/iseales
