Dear Editor,
We are seeing that too much hatred and anger now exists in the society, either due to the general situation of dissatisfaction that humanity is experiencing, or because we are overwhelmed by a profound crisis of civilization, without anyone telling us how to overcome it or where this flight into the darkness will take us. In Guyana the culture of hatred makes us condemn, criticize, judge, be arrogant, and not accept blame for the wrong which we are engaged in. These behaviours are propelled by the obsession for material things driven by consumerism and competition in the society.
We see the other person as a ‘thing’ to condemn and cuss down, and we exploit the vulnerable and the poor which we feel it is normal to do. We allow these attitudes to grow and control our lives so we only see things through the lens of hatred and bitterness. This attitude stifles the good side of us to be tolerant towards the other and understand his or her feelings and put ourselves in their situation. The culture of hatred and bitterness also blocks our minds and hearts from seeing the other Guyanese as our brethren to build a fraternal nation.
Editor, with this negative mentality of our Guyanese people, how can we look into ourselves and revise our attitutes? Because the future leaders who are our children and youths nurtured by this culture of hatred and condeming one another in contemporary Guyanese society will replicate the sins of their fathers ‒ perhaps worse ‒ with future generations.
In this context to combate hatred and bitterness there is need to cultivate the attitude of love. This is something our Guyanese should practise, especially our politicians and leaders to show as good example to the children and youth in the country. Love, I believe is the transforming force of love, as expressed in the Prayer of Saint Francis: where there is hatred, there I bring love. Love here is more than a subjective feeling. It acquires a collective and social form: love of a common cause, love for the people as a whole, especially those most downtrodden by life, love of the nation (we need a healthy nationalism), love as a capacity to listen to the reasoning of the other, love as an opening to dialogue and to interchange.
If we neither find nor listen to the other, how are we going to know what the other thinks and hopes to do? We would then start imagining and projecting distorted visions, nourishing prejudices and destroying the possible bridges that unite the borders.
We need to give more space to our positive ‘cordiality’ (because there is also a negative one) that lets us be more generous, capable of looking ahead and upwards, leaving behind that which belongs behind, and of not letting resentment feed rage, rage feed hatred and hatred feed violence.
Yours faithfully,
Medino Abraham
