Dear Editor,
Diversity of view is crucial to successful academics. It is crucial to finding political and social correctness. If you cannot foster diversity of view economic plans can fall apart because they have not survived the stress of justification brought about by an opposing view.
Guyana as a nation is having the extent of its wealth confirmed. Guyana can market oil and gas, gold, diamonds, bauxite, manganese, lumber, many other commodities also. What, however, is the value of this wealth if the nation disintegrates? The nation must not disintegrate. The reality is that unless urgent steps to togetherness are discerned and implemented, the nation itself can be ‘lost’, as one old friend said, ‘Danglin like a lif in the weend’.
The opposition and the elected party must agree to work together. Leave the bacchanal for the campaign trail, and even then the boast should be that ‘we have managed the business of the electorate very well. We have co-operated for the benefit of the electorate. Together we have protected the interests of the nation. Vote for us.’ And risk the electorate choosing whom they will in the proportional representation process.
The alternative is continual bitter bickering, a lot of it derived from accusations about ‘thiefin’. So what about ‘thiefin’? Some people will ‘thief’. Catch who you can, but stop the endless accusations. The ‘thief men’ will have to live with the reputation. They may not find this pleasant nor edifying for a whole life time. Of course, all necessary checks need to be in place and this is a challenge for effective government. Know also that sound management requires some foggy vision sometimes so fog up when necessary! Fogging up does not equate with lost vision. It equates with intelligent revision.
What is the price to pay for divisiveness? Has the nation counted how many non-Guyanese are in Guyana right now? All they need to do is watch the fighting and move their pieces into strategic positions of influence created by Guyana’s failure to be inclusive about the Guyanese nation. A divided nation will not be able to withstand a huge threat to national identity if there is political back stabbing and mauvais langue. Granted there may be marvellous satisfaction in telling off the other side, but that is the bell than rings doom for the nation.
Right now, based on report, the wealth needs to be equitably spread. Anyone with a mustard seed of common sense would know that that question of equitable spread of wealth was bound to come up because of Guyana’s leap into prosperity. There is bound to be a lag between getting the wealth and spreading it. National paranoia should not ensue.
I suggest that some definite organization of thought needs to be done by the nation inclusive of school populations. A direct approach is needed which has developmental specifics. It is easy to gauge non-performance if specifics are named. There is a great deal of difference between a written project proposal for a children’s playground with specified play equipment and loud, angry crowd protests that there are no recreational facilities. The latter feeds disunity.
Have First Nations thought of presenting a plan for preferential marketing of corials and ballahoos, hand crafted paddles, and calabashes for bailing as products for the tourism industry? Don’t do it, and see the importation of fancy boats like those you see on the rivers of the metropolitan countries. First Nations can make substantial contributions of their vast experience and tribal knowledge to the tourism product. They must not prostrate themselves and allow tourism to walk on them because they do not declare that it is their very life and living spaces that are essential for successful tourism. They themselves must propose ways to control and enjoy prosperity. They must ensure that they are not divided from the nation.
I suggest that the populations of the secondary schools (and even primary schools) are treasure in achieving control over resources, in plotting projects which establish that Guyana is able to handle its wealth. Get the secondary schools on board. Sensitize them to development and its constraints. Ask them what they want their Guyana to become. They will eventually have to manage the wealth. Let them begin now to organize themselves to do so. Let the diverse views flow. Let points of cohesion arise.
Without national cohesiveness Guyana’s wealth may well become the source of great division. Get together, love up all the people, spread a kind of generosity which stimulates participation. Teach the communities how project presentation is done and so empower them to participate in nation building.
A divided nation may try to blame ills on the foreigner in their midst. None of that! Love up the foreigner also but keep your hands on the reins. The Guyanese nation is a small one. It does not need to choose division which reduces its transformative power. ‘Badface’ to the foreigner will not help national unity, ‘badface’ to nobody, in fact!
So I say,
Gabriella Rodriguez
