It is not just Guyanese who have been slipping in and out of daydreams arising out of the seemingly limitless prospects that repose in the country’s fast arriving oil and gas sector. The rest of the Caribbean too, notably Trinidad and Tobago, whose own tilt at oil wealth is now, from everything that we are hearing, probably close to exhaustion, at least in the immediate term, are painting fanciful pictures of the possibilities reposing in the likely world class windfall that could derive from ExxonMobil’s discoveries here.
It was almost surreal to read in the editorial of the Friday November 8th issue of the Trinidad and Tobago Express a description of Guyana as ‘the new energy powerhouse next door.” We are simply never blessed by the Trinis with such glowing descriptions of ourselves.
What the same Express editorial disclosed (and this may well have been news to many of us in Guyana) is that “for the better part of the last four years, interests in Trinidad and Tobago have been gearing up in more ways than one to seek to benefit from and to contribute at the same time to the coming boom in neighboring Guyana.”
So now it would seem that, finally, our sister CARICOM country has jettisoned the “mudlands” (another piece of choice derogatory terminology) perception of Guyana.
It appears, according to the Express, that the various expert ‘think-ins’ that have been going on in T&T once it became clear that the state-run oil company Petrotrin was operating on borrowed time, took considerable account of such options as might be open to those oil and gas professionals in the twin-island Republic whose jobs were on the line. Indeed, according to The Express the Trinis had been “meeting, planning and mobilizing the co-ordination of skills, of manpower” long before the closure of Petrotrin. It figures, since the available evidence suggests that we are currently in the midst of a constant stream of ‘pilgrimages’ to George-town from Port of Spain by Trini oil and gas ‘people’ looking to see what is in it for them.
Truth be told, it is not in the nature of Guyanese, as a people, to be hostile to outsiders. We are usually accommodating to visitors. At any rate, Guyanese, as much as (if not more than) any other people in the region, have embraced the spirit of community that CARICOM embodies. Some Guyanese who have been around long enough will also recall our oil crisis days during the 1970’s when, as some of us put it, Trinidad was ‘good to us’ as far as oil supplies (and generous credit) were concerned.
Since then, however, as we say in Guyana, there has been a lot of water under the bridge. Trinidad and Tobago, particularly, though not exclusively among CARICOM countries, has meted out generous doses of inhospitable treatment towards Guyanese travelling to or through that country. Much of it has been downright demeaning and efforts at the level of government, over protracted periods, to get this to change, have gone nowhere for a long time. On the other hand – and if the Express editorial is anything to go by- there would appear to be an expectation on the part of the Trinidadians that the ‘mudland’ will now embrace what it says are “the people-to-people exchanges that have already been set in motion” by the belated interest of Trinidadian fortune seekers in the oil and gas ‘action’ here. Mind you, there have even been very recent instances in which Guyanese have been enduring occasions of unacceptable rudeness from our visitors from Port of Spain on their oil and gas pursuits.
There is nothing wrong with reminding them, politely but assertively, that while we are open to partnering in oil and gas-related ventures, this is still sovereign territory and that we value our dignity as a nation above what they perceive to be the business opportunities that repose in the oil and gas sector.
But oil and gas and its spinoffs is not the only issue here. All of what has been mentioned hitherto is taking place against the backdrop of Trinidad and Tobago’s persistent protectionist posture insofar as its receptivity to Guyanese exports is concerned, domestic exporters’ sustained protests notwithstanding. That too has to be thrown into the mix of issues.
While one doubts that we will ever arrive at a point of outright Guyanese resentment of the Trinis, some measure of assertive pushback against what sometimes seems to be a propensity on their part to take us for granted, is clearly warranted now. After all there is a great deal that has happened over time that gives us good reason to feel disrespected, not least the ‘mudland’ perspective from which Trinidad and Tobago has often appeared to see us. This perception embraces everything including their views of us as a poor neighbour with a proclivity for foraging beyond our 83,000 square miles for betterment. They must now accept the reality, however difficult they may find it, that our oil and gas good fortune has been (we hope) a game-changer and even if it would be unacceptably unkind to wave it in their faces, the reality simply has to bring some meaningful change in the manner in which they have often seen and treated us. That should be non-negotiable.
Our inherent weakness in this regard – and the propensity derives, perhaps, from our instinctive good-natured hospitableness as a people – is that we have been deficient in mastering the skill of assertive pushback. Witness for example, the fact that the far too quiet protestations of our business sector over Port of Spain’s protectionist ways have not been reciprocated by any sort of energetic public or private sector protest save and except the occasional pinprick grumbling by sections of the local media. Both sectors have to ‘carry the can’ for this state of affairs. It has been suggested in some quarters that, these days, our Business Support Organizations have become so preoccupied with their own Local Content ‘pound of flesh’ that little else matters. That is not necessarily our view. What we do believe, however, is that the timing is propitious for our private sector to send a clear and unpretentious signal to Port of Spain that in exchange for the cooperation/collaboration which they clearly wish for in the oil and gas sector, we anticipate an across-the-board reciprocity that address not just their protectionist ways that throttles some of our emerging sectors but, beyond that, a complete transformation in the manner in which they see and treat us. The ‘mudland’ perception of what is now, hopefully, a country in the throes of transformation has to end. It would also not hurt, too, if the eyepass-must-end theme finds its way into the narrative of our diplomatic engagements, deploying, naturally, its own language and tenor.
