Dear Editor,
A tour d’horizon of letters to editors of the mainstream media, would reflect the political views of both government and opposition, the positives and negatives in Guyanese current affairs, as well as the hopes and aspirations of letter writers.
Among the letters published, are those penned by fence-sitters, the optimists, the cynics and the pessimists, as well as by those who seem depressed and frustrated with the performance of the APNU+AFC coalition administration’s handling of the socio-political and economic situation in Guyana.
The cynics, the depressed and the frustrated, seem to be on the ascendancy and are the most prolific of all. The optimists seem to be either camping out at Jurassic Park or hankering out on the periphery.
Cumulatively, whatever the category of the writer or nature of the topic, all letters published can be considered a true reflection of real life in Guyana.
That aside, the current situation begs the question of whether Guyana is still considered by many to be the ‘best of all the world’.
No doubt, many who write, from both home and abroad, are children of Guyana and not adopted by another. They, perhaps, still love their native land. Whether they will remain ‘loyal citizens’ until ‘the day they die’ is another matter.
With all that’s going on now in Guyana—heightened criminal activity, trafficking in cocaine, marijuana cultivation, the penetration of ecstasy in schools, unbearable noise nuisance, domestic violence, child abuse, high levels of corruption, mounting levels of unemployment, overcrowding in prisons, unbelievable levels of incompetence, rampant squandermania, shameful violations of our constitution and interference in constitutional bodies, break down in the rule of law ending up with arithmetical absurdities— one is left to wonder how do the stresses and strains of everyday life dovetail with Guyana being the ‘Best of all the world to me?’
In the circumstances, many are puzzled as to whether this is indeed the land where ‘all our hopes and aspirations, all our longings and only tie’ will be realised. Moreover, will the much anticipated revenues from oil and gas begin to flow in the direction of the poor and dispossessed?
Bizarre as it might seem, it is hardly likely, especially when we recall with shame the bread that was taken from the mouths of thousands of sugar workers who once toiled where the ‘sweet, sweet sugar cane’ once grew.
How can Guyana be ‘a land so fair and free’, when the modern day Citizen John, who never once said, ‘That’s not my job and I do not care’, but now, when offered a job, views employment as an opportunity to throw back and ‘leave all the work for others to do?’
At the same-time it would seem hypocritical to cast blame on Citizen John for his behaviour, when the worst example is set from the top by today’s rulers who would preach but never practice, ‘Each man must do his bit for his land’, preferring to idle away their time dreaming about those ‘fair lands afar with their silvern lakes and placid streams’, while secretly harbouring the desire to enjoy their wealth and grandness of their scenery one day.
In the circumstances, one can only surmise that it is the ‘sylvan vales and rippling brooks’ that have charmed them so much so, that they continue to hold on dearly to their dual citizenship.
In the cut and thrust of Guyana’s daily politics, the question therefore arises: Is Guyana still more ‘Dear to us than all the world’ when thousands flock to the US Embassy and the Canadian High Commission in a mad rush to seek their fortunes in another’s land?
With the ‘fleeting years’ rolling by, the present Guyanese generation awaits the ‘dawning’ of their country’s ‘glory’ in light of their Dear Land’s newly founded oil and gas resources.
But ‘the long long nigh’ still casts an ominous shadow over the nation which is yet to ‘arise triumphant glorious from the ashes of the past’ because ‘the spirits of ‘both bondsmen and free’, who ‘laid their bones on our shore’ do not rest in peace, even though we are ‘sons of one mother’ but children of two different fathers.
Instead of beating our swords into ploughshares, we lack the ‘valiant will and purpose keen’ to exonerate the many ‘who ended their lives on this ground’; the result being the creation of a nation bedeviled with divisive politics, ethnic garrison-type peculiarities, and evasive in its search for racial and national unity.
How much ‘onward, upward’ must ‘we ever go’ to free ourselves from remaining entrapped ‘in fear and doubting’, preferring to carve out our respective ethnically oriented fates characterized by ‘distraction, prejudice and hate?’
What is the nature of this ‘service’, this ‘homage’ we are called upon to give to our ‘Dear Land of Guyana’ in order to make that service and our homage ‘more worthy our heritage’?
‘Land of the free’ from whom, for whom and from what?
Yours faithfully,
Clement J. Rohee
