Dear Editor,
Because we are at a critical juncture for the progress of democracy, I feel impelled to express plainly a view that risks alienating people who have always been polite to me. My analysis of the failure of Guyanese politics makes me identify two wrongs. First, the paramountcy of the party. Secondly, the misuse of power thus derived for material greed, in a culture dominated by vulgar materialism.
For a dozen years I have lived in Lethem, a small community where everybody knows everybody’s business. The more prominent the person, the more his actions are scrutinized and exposed. Through the press and other information, I can see that other communities too are aware of many instances of misuse of public position, ordered or tolerated by higher power, for dishonest gain from public funds. All of us let it happen, and few have the courage to protest.
So the situation in my hometown reflects almost the whole country. The Chairman of our National Democratic Council is a basically honourable person who is not following party lines when he says the council was elected to represent all the citizens of the Region, to make regional policy for implemention by the regional administration. The head of that administration, appointed by the central government ministry, feels he has to protect the Region’s share of national funding by carrying out policies dictated by central government. He doesn’t think he needs to explain anything to the people he governs, for his commanding personality will overcome any shadows from his past record or his current performance.
But both men understand that they owe their positions to party politics, and they know no other framework for exercising the power the people’s votes gave them.
To keep their positions, they feel, they have to carry on a political style which is all about fighting down the other party, even at the expense of ordinary people’s interests. And they both have to make the best living they can, and show success by worldly standards.
Why do we accept a system and a style of governance that is so clearly leading us downhill? Is it because we all seem condemned to an unending hustle to get by, if necessary at the expense of our fellow-citizens. And, in case it matters, at the expense of principles that are to most of us today only forgotten relics of a bygone age. How do we get out of this vortex? Do we want to – and if we want to, how can we – bring about the paramountcy of the common good?
It’s too late to address the voters about the elections, for most will vote along party lines anyway. Can we nevertheless hope that the voters, after the elections, will take their part in local – and ultimately national – governance, and insist on their direct role in decision-making that affects the daily lives of all of us. The alternative is plain to see.
Yours faithfully,
Gordon Forte
