Dear Editor,
With the launch of the People’s Republic Party, I am happy to see yet another party in the election mix as I believe that a healthy democracy is one in which persons should have many options to choose from. I am also intrigued that at least one party is being led by a woman – particularly when some are considerably lacking in women in leadership. I am also relieved that the members of the PRP choose to wear their prejudice against LGBTQ people out in the open for all to see. Normally, people wait to win you over with vague words of compassion and kindness, cloaked in whichever religious trappings they happen to follow, before they ultimately admit that they view some mortals as lesser because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. We certainly have some honest folks in the PRP!
I am curious to know whether Dr. Leung intends to remove Guyana as a signatory from the United Nations (UN) Declaration on Human Rights, which enshrines the right to life and a woman’s fundamental right to physical and mental integrity, including full sexual and reproductive rights such as the right to an abortion. Doing so would be detrimental to social cohesion, reducing decades of social and legal progress in Guyana in ridding ourselves of colonial adopted “values” and laws which promoted state-sanctioned oppression against people because of their sexuality or liberty to choose what is in their best interest.
Maybe we will move away entirely from the UN and their “foreign” notions of human rights altogether. Does Dr. Leung envisage an isolationist future for Guyana?
Of course, Dr. Leung has every right to run in the elections. And Guyanese have every right to remind PRP members that, according to our Constitution, we are a secular nation. This means that there is an embedded principle of the separation of religion from public policy.
On the matter of integrity, Dr. Leung is convinced that only religious people have good values and morals. This is absurd. If it can even be claimed, given the stance of so many Christians, to have any uplifting values at all, Christianity (or Islam or Hinduism or any other religion) cannot claim to have a monopoly on morality or ethics. There is nothing religious about integrity as non-believers too can be ethical and upstanding citizens. In fact, many of history’s horrors have occurred because of the questionable beliefs of religious groups (look no further than Jonestown). If we want integrity to become part and parcel of the moral fabric of our society, then we can all contribute to this by practicing shared values, such as the “golden rule”, which is a principle shared across many cultures and beliefs.
Human flourishing, regardless of what you look like or who you love, should be the message of political parties, not hostility, exclusion or branding people as ‘others’. We live in a multicultural and multi-religious country. We need leaders who represent the interests and values of all our people, not just the people who look, think or act like them. Guyana must move on from this sort of fragmented thinking. One people. One nation. One destiny.
In the unlikely event that the PRP wins the 2020 elections, I want Dr. Leung to know that the genie is already out of the bottle and there will still be a Pride Parade come next June – even if it’s just myself and a handful of people walking down the street. You can’t stop the march of human progress.
Yours faithfully,
Krysta Sadhana
