There was once a visitor to Dublin, lost somewhere near the city centre who stopped and asked a passer-by for directions. The story is that he got the very Irish reply: “If you want to get there, 
boyo, you certainly shouldn’t start from where you are now.”
That would make a pretty good reply to anyone in Guyana today asking directions how to achieve a prosperous economy and a tolerant, progressive society. You shouldn’t start from where you are now if you could help it.
The here and now of Guyana is too full of interminable political back-biting, too depressed by a deadly social malaise, too immured in corruptible bureaucratic procedures to make it a very good place right now from which to start a journey towards national reconciliation and economic resurgence.
We have to redirect ourselves. And the first thing to say is that no amount of wringing of hands and wailing of woes and bitter harking back to old grievances or I-told-you-so accusations and counter-accusations no amount of all that is going to enable us to start the long journey to the better life.
We have to forget all that and do as the Irishman suggested to the lost visitor he should do: start from a different place. Somehow we have to make a fresh start.
In saying this in simply mentioning the innocent words ‘fresh start,’ one can immediately hear the heavy breathing of politicians on all sides over-anxious to have their say at the top of their voices. For myself I wish but it seems an impossible wish that at this time a simple liberal creed could shine through the surrounding murkiness. It is a creed I believe in and was expressed very well, I think, by Alan Paton, the author of Cry The Beloved Country, in the second volume of his autobiography which he finished just before he died:
“By liberalism I don’t mean the creed of any party or any country. I mean a generosity of sprit, a tolerance of others, an attempt to comprehend otherness, a commitment to the rule of law, a high ideal of the worth and dignity of man, a repugnance of authoritarianism, and a love of freedom.”
So much for the politics, if only such a creed could prevail and could be seen to prevail.
As for society at large, nothing is more important than that we should appreciate the desperate seriousness of the exodus out of the country which continues to take place. The reasons for this exodus go well beyond discontent over the present state of affairs. It shows loss of faith and hope in the future and that is the worst thing that could possibly happen to a people.
The scale of our exodus compares with the mid-19th century exodus from Ireland after the great famine there led to millions fleeing for America, leaving behind a country which lost nearly a third of its population and took a very long time to recover from the shock.
We must therefore give our exodus deep attention, not try to minimize it, not make the mistake of mislabeling it as simple disloyalty, view it at least as seriously as either countries might view riots and demonstrations, and consider therefore as a priority what measures are needed to stem it. And who can doubt that this search for measures must at the very least focus on the state of education in the country and the need for more and better teachers and a greatly upgraded university.
When it comes to earning a daily living, the economy is seen to be faltering. And the budget’s increased taxation will reduce the general population’s ability and willingness to spend – thus further reducing economic activity in a quickly accelerating vicious spiral downwards. The government must find a way to halt and reverse this spiral.
In considering the larger economy among the myriad of priorities I select three – non-original suggestions.
We must increase production and productivity in the export industries of sugar, bauxite, rice and forestry. The foreign exchange which these industries earn and the mass employment they provide are factors over and above profit and loss considerations. I do not believe that even sugar, viewed currently with such complete despair, should be written off.
Whatever happens in the future these basic industries must be given the resources to keep plant and equipment in good working order and the people motivated who earn a living wage for their families and produce vital foreign exchange.
The infrastructure, the basic plant capacity, and the export markets of these industries are already in place and that is a practical advantage which must not be abandoned in order to worship at the altar of theoretical diversification and with the distant expectation of rolling in oil riches.
A second priority is to keep pace with what is going on in the world of communications and achieve a standard which at least consistently meets the minimum requirements of our business and young professional class. Constant breakdown and basic deficiencies in this area are infinitely frustrating.
A third priority is to establish electricity supply at levels which will enable business to work normally and efficiently and permit people to live their lives free of that peculiar mixture of fury, despair and feeling of degradation which an interminable regime of black-outs causes in the society. That Irishman we met at the start of this column would be the first to tell us that we will never get where we want to go with the way lit only by standby generators.
