Political parties campaign on promises. More jobs, improved living standards and, in the case of Guyana, an end to blackouts. That was one of the promises of the current government, yet here we are four years later, the year 2019, and an end to blackouts seems nowhere in sight.
To be Guyanese living in our beloved country often feels like we are second or even third-class citizens of the world; like it should be natural to accept that our lives will be laden with suffering and inconveniences. However, we do not have to accept that. We are more than mere subjects of any regime who must accept and be satisfied with living in undesirable conditions.
Maybe as a child I never thought there would ever be an end to blackouts. I was born in the 80s and grew up in the 90s and it seemed like the just the norm. But certainly as an adult, having experienced life in other countries where there are no power outages except in circumstances like natural disasters, I have come to expect that an end to blackout in Guyana should not be a hope for tomorrow, a possibility for the next year or a maybe in the next decade. The time has long passed when we should have resolved this problem.