Senior citizens carry this nation on their backs, like a burden they can only unload in death. When this nation was in its infancy, newly independent with that dream of freedom from Massa’s grasp, many were there with the hope and promise of what Guyana would be. Decades would pass and some of these senior citizens breathing the air of flaring and other pollutions of the environment and humankind, are perhaps faced with regret having been at the birth of a nation that in their lifetime they are yet to see be fully realised.
It is not only that some of the burdens they carried have been inherited by their children. Like the fact that they were not successful in fully uniting this nation, where ethnicity issues are still seen among the people and are a feature in the political cesspool where corruption and discrimination thrive. It is not only that their children and them are now crying over cost of living since COVID-19 and the influx of immigrants and the worsening global crisis where the minority rich grow richer and the majority poor continue to scramble and dream.
In Guyana it is 8% for the low, lower, and lowest income earners public servants. But 8% only makes sense for the high, higher, and highest income earners public servants, for it gives them more power to invest, delude themselves that all is well and splurge. Here in Guyana is where those the people employ tell the low, lower, and lowest earners in the public service that 8% is enough for them. Guyana is no movie or dream where Dr. Evil brings death and destruction, but the credits will roll, or we will wake up. This is real life suffering where many Guyanese have had enough and feel they cannot speak or protest or demand what they deserve in their own country.
The $28,000 cash grants for our senior citizens do little to alleviate the burdens already on their backs. One trip to the supermarket and that is groceries for maybe a week or two. How dare they demand more and not be grateful? How dare they want to eat from the king’s table and not remain in the population of commoners feeding on the crumbs for the majority even in their senior years? We must focus on infrastructure and then the rest will come is the message we have been receiving—like hunger is filling and death is delayed until the dream world is realized; like the people can eat the infrastructure.
What is a beautiful country with people who have been made ugly by the suffering and desperation they face and the elevation of some above the rest depending on who they pledge allegiance to? Mental illness plagues the children and there are examples such as the bloody hands of young women who murder their elderly relatives. The symptoms of a broken society are conspicuous. The symptoms grab the people by their throats, like nefarious creatures whispering in their ears to act violently because they are suffering. Our senior citizens are often harmed in this process and their pain, or their deaths can be seen as omens that the dysfunction will continue to grow with no end date, like a warning that we must reconcile and make things right for all the children of Guyana.
We must pay attention to patterns. What do the deaths of three of our senior citizens a couple of days apart at the hands of their relatives warn us about?
A 21-year-old granddaughter can be the alleged killer of her grandmother and have a baby nursing at her breasts. It is a tragedy for all involved when a postpartum depressive state leads to bloodshed. It is also a tragedy when young women are perhaps not fully prepared for motherhood, are not educated about what can come after giving birth, and they silently carry their depression and not seek help. Agatha Garnell, 75 years old, was murdered in Charity.
In the land of many waters, another young woman, 37 years old, is alleged to have participated in the murder of her aunt for her savings and her house. Some will say the man who she is jointly charged with was the dominant force in the evil act. But coldness is not a man or a woman thing. It is a thing where humans of any ethnicity, gender or social class can lose all sense of humanity, believing that better will come from their wicked actions. Unloading the burden of this nation still to be realised should not end in blood for daughters who were there in 1966 when Independence was celebrated. Sumintra Sawh, 85 years old, was murdered in Berbice.
In the land of ExxonMobil’s oil finds, a nephew can murder his aunt during an argument by stabbing her because she asked him to move out of her house. Audrey Harris, 76 years old was murdered in Georgetown.
One senior citizen is dead because her niece allegedly wanted her house, the other dead because she asked her 50-year-old nephew to move out of her house. (For many, there is thirst for shelter in a country where land is plenty and no Guyanese should be wanting for shelter. There are now two dead squatters, a husband and wife, who were electrocuted in Success squatting area, where snakes live, where they break the squatters as they build, and flood waters often wash away their dreams. Such woe in a land of plenty; of citizens on the verge of homelessness and another injured child in need of love and care, the daughter who found the dead bodies of her electrocuted parents.)
The venom spreads across the country as seen in the deaths of those three senior citizens. While we must commend the efforts that are being made to save and restore the mentally ill, the stigma and discrimination that is still attached to mental illness leads to silence and suffering for citizens. Can we be surprised if a significant amount of this population is mentally disturbed? Does the knowledge of suffering or the suffering miss any of us?
When women and men kill their elderly relatives, we must pay attention. When the people continue to cry at the footsteps of leaders and they are ignored, we must pay attention. When the efforts to truly unite and empower all Guyanese are lacking, we must pay attention. What is the true meaning of ‘One Guyana’?
How many of us will grow to be those senior citizens who inherited the burden to carry the nation on our backs – and at the time of our unloading Guyana will still not be the country that was imagined at Independence?
