Dear Editor,
To say that Guyana is losing its soul would be to suggest that it had one. Maybe it did. I might seem cynical, however, but I really do not remember when it did possess one. Of course I have zero credibility from which to judge Guyana. I left Guyana when I was just a teen and came back in the heart of all the claims of political and corporate corruption and killings. When I was leaving in 1985, LFS Burnham had just died, the country was grossly impoverished and it was beginning to be catapulted into a power struggle among the PNC heavy hitters – Hamilton Green and his crew and Desmond Hoyte and his crew. (I am yet to be properly schooled as to why Mr Burnham chose Mr Hoyte over Mr Green.)
I am 48 years old now and I have lived outside of Guyana for about half that time. The Guyana I knew under Burnham for 16 years, then Jagdeo for 4 years, then Ramotar for 3 years and now Granger for 1 year, has failed to impress me that it has soul. The closest we came to having a soul was in the few months leading up to the last national elections and in the days immediately following. There seems to have been an unparalleled amount of expectation and hopefulness. Change was in the air. But now the honeymoon is over and country seems to have reverted to being in search of its soul, again.
Over the last few months I have travelled to Essequibo and Berbice. I have met with folks from Linden and Georgetown and for the most part the thinking is unanimous: the search for the country’s soul continues. Notwithstanding the bugbear of unemployment and financial stagnation, our political leaders continue their unrelenting, unreasonable and unpatriotic onslaught against each other. On the one hand, the PPP continues to fret about the audits. How could a political party not feel one iota of responsibility for the billions of dollars that have been misspent, stolen and otherwise misappropriated under its watch?
Then, on the other hand, the coalition conducting the audits with all that damning evidence, continues to let bygones be bygones. We were told that the consequences for those deviant and crookish behaviours were that those responsible will never be able to steal billions from the taxpayers again. Of course, that is while this government is in power because the PPP says clearly that those audits are vindictive, witch-hunting and fake. In other words, no one did anything wrong. So when the PPP returns to power, there will be no need to change anything and the skullduggery will be allowed to continue unabated for another 23 years.
The soullessness of Guyana was again seen when some Guyanese allegedly threw fellow Guyanese into the Atlantic Ocean. These were fathers, and sons, and brothers, and friends. They had people who loved and depended on them. The soullessness continued with some Guyanese throwing a grenade at some fellow Guyanese while they gathered to reflect on the life of their dear friend.
The general acceptable behaviour of those in this soulless country is that no one should ever be held accountable for any act of terror. The notion is that Walter Rodney killed himself. Waddell killed himself. Satyadeow Sawh killed himself. Crum-Ewing killed himself and if that grenade had exploded and some had died, it would have been concluded that they would have definitely killed themselves.
In a country without a soul, any wrongdoing is justifiable. No one has a right to oppose anyone or anything. Politicians, especially, want to be left alone, no matter how rotten and autocratic their policies. The masses are asked to tolerate all their misgivings, with never an occasional apology for their mistakes. Not one of our leaders will apologize to their subjects. Not one of them! We elect gods. The most ridiculous behaviours are explained away, as our collective intelligence is insulted. The name of the game is absolute power.
It is obvious that the killers and supporters of the killers of Rodney, Waddell, Sawh, Crum-Ewing and the myriad of others, are still out there. What is also very obvious is that those who wanted to harm the folks at Kaieteur News and their supporters are still out there. But in a soulless country, lip service will forever be given to any detailed search for the intellectual authors of our murdered citizens. After all, we all want power, and if I investigate you, you might investigate me and then the game will be over. What fun is there in that? We have never been a county with a real soul, so why pretend now? So we arrest the underlings and pretend we have the culprits.
The first day a real culprit, an intellectual author, of any of the high-profile killings in Guyana is arrested, charged and sentenced, the country will breathe a collective sigh and we will start to live. But until then, the average man in the street will continue to pattern his life from those at the top.
Yours faithfully,
Pastor W P Jeffrey
Practical Christianity Ministries
