Two presidents, agri and food
It gives me no pleasure whatsoever to be so absolutely negative about my homeland today. I guess, however, that like the headlines and captions in our newspaper dailies, I’m merely reflecting the sad realities of our existence these days.
So just what am I going on about? It is the stark debilitating fact that for a population way under a million souls, daily varieties of gruesome crime are woefully disproportionate to the crime rates of nearby nations each boasting millions of citizens. Respect to the local police analyses but they don’t dwell in all our villages, ghettoes and interior communities. Additionally to this lament for today, I’m excluding the relative mayhem on our roads taking as many lives as assaults and murders – through traffic accidents.
Whether via old-time physical newspapers or the more modern, obviously popular internet – social media or television, the captions scream uncivilised, near-savage behaviours at poor matured me. And when I wonder what precipitated the human descent, I provide myself with answers – some obvious, many constructed – but am always left wondering just why today’s Guyana seems beset by man’s inhumanity to man. (The late Prime Minister Ptolemy Reid liked the latter description.)
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Grandmother’s values, life now wrecked, cheapened
Pardon me for being a bit preachy now. But frankly speaking, when poor, challenged mothers, fathers, guardians brought up children in economically-depressed communities, their own parents’ guidance, their sense of decencies, their religion – perhaps with a little element of friendly law-enforcement – all combined to mould minds less likely to become disorderly, disrespectful or criminal.
Frankly speaking, as my own poor, old, “red-lady” grandmother groomed me in the fifties, she – and I of course – hardly used or knew the terms “values” and “morals”. But ironically those were being inculcated every day!
Today I’m still no activist Christian. But between five and twelve years old – before she passed – I was made to attend, however briefly, a variety of religious houses. (We lived in a humble cottage on Church Street, Alberttown). Anglican, Roman Catholic, Salvation Army, Seventh Day Adventist, Pilgrim Holiness, the very first Assembly of God and one Muslim mosque were all “visited” by little me.
Whether the fear of God or the love of God, many moralistic, humane-oriented values stuck with little me. I’m proud to report that though needy and poor, I – and dozens of my neighbourhood little pals – never considered theft or extreme criminality.
When a rare murder was committed somewhere in British Guiana, my grannie and her old-lady friends would discuss that horror for days! (I often wonder how they would have coped these days!)
How modern and uncaring and less-than-civilised we are now. Stabbings, choppings, dumping of bodies, gunshots fatal, vehicular homicides, kidnappings, murderous home-and-business-place-invasions.
The daily list seems endless. Blame this government? But the Brigadier-President’s administration with dozens of old policemen and army officers reduced or eliminated nothing.
This is not the occasion for humour. However as we contemplate remedies, I’m reminded of Hamilton Green’s call for “a moral and spiritual revival/renewal”. What a pity he hardly qualifies as the best messenger! Poor us. Human life seems now not worthy. But cheap.
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Help! Therapy! Allow me fantasy…
Whether you spell it fantasy or phantasy, it means “a product of the imagination”; “fancy”; “illusion”.
After the foregoing in earlier paragraphs read me here fantasising to treat my depression.
Here goes: • oil (and gas) revenues will soon be used to fund and be distributed, to specific folks. • Monthly vouchers for supermarkets, pharmacies, school supplies and house rentals. • Special big/Omni buses will be imported for free use by school-children and older citizens.
• The government, the private sector and CIVIC groups will collaborate to modernise our towns and city • Every region will avail land for young Guyanese to establish food farms only. • The Guyanese diaspora will be guided/supported officially in establishing businesses, especially factories, in selected villages.
• The government will complete new highways and bridges. • The Georgetown cemetery will he upgraded for respectability as will other public graveyards. • And funeral expenses will be subsided by the state for our more needy families.
That’s all for now – my basic wishes for a new/one Guyana for all. What do you think?
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Two presidents promoting agri, food
I fail to see how we Guyanese can now go wrong or hungry. Pandemic, floods, or European wars, or not!
The president was great at promoting regional agriculture for food security recently. I watched Bajan and Trini leaders follow him almost worshipfully.
The other Guyanese president – actually a Vice – or Deputy – President caught my ear, on NCN TV, explaining expertly about the control and use of water (for agriculture.) Let’s applaud effort.
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Until…
• 1) Postponed: Drugsland Guyana – to next Friday.
• 2) I was actually thrilled! NCN TV is promoting Barbados Crop Over!
Until!
