Some believe that Guyana’s brain drain for the past few decades has contributed to the underdevelopment of the country and the rise of the corrupt. The brain drain continues even in the season of oil. With only a small section of the population benefitting, many are still choosing to leave instead of growing old with unfulfilled dreams in Guyana. We continue to deteriorate becoming less and less of a country where there is justice, righteousness, and equality for all. We must speak the truth about who we are and admit that the country our ancestors would have dreamed of is not. What is here to keep the highly trained and intelligent unless they “rub shoulders with the big boys” and become a part of the silent or corrupt? It is every man for himself. The flights are leaving everyday with Guyanese who plan to never return or only to visit. What is here when people are often not adequately paid compared to other countries and the standard of living for the majority is low?
We are in a season where nurses are leaving to answer the call of the United Kingdom and the United States and instead of making efforts to pay nurses what their skills, time and effort are worth, we instead explore bringing in foreign nurses. Will the foreign nurses be paid the same salaries that Guyanese nurses are paid? I think not. It is adding insult to injury for the Guyanese who will stay to continue to care for our sick. This is what we do to our people. We disrespect them. We replace them. We frustrate and oppress them. We will faster ensure that the highly trained and intelligent immigrants some who are here to rob and recolonize us be paid what they are worth, but our people who have been crying and begging for decades for living wages across the board have been ignored or given empty promises.
It is not only the highly intelligent and trained that continue to leave, but it is many from the general Guyanese population who once they get the opportunity to leave, are leaving. Some Guyanese would even rather be an illegal immigrant than return to Guyana. Every day there is something new to push one to the edge. It is not about being unpatriotic. It is about people wanting to experience life where they can work and build without the unnecessary struggle it comes with for many in Guyana. It is about securing their children’s future. It is about comfort. In 2023 we are still grappling with issues like blackouts, many communities are neglected, streets are dilapidated, the services at many of our institutions are poor, people want bribes for doing their jobs, we see corruption everywhere and instead of abhorring it, many have been conditioned to embrace it. It is like we are constantly fighting to slow our deaths.
There are those who believe that Guyana is becoming a better place because we see new buildings, expanding roads and the throwing of cash grants. Simpletons perhaps. Dishonest perhaps. If the lives of the poorest are not improving and their living conditions are not ideal, how is that progress? If the moral decay continues to worsen and corruption is rife, how are we becoming better?
We are told that oil money has gone into cash grants while many Guyanese including me never received cash grants like the COVID cash grant that was supposed to be for every household. We talk about adding a few thousand dollars to old age pension and school cash grants like it is remarkable change that is happening in this country and will alleviate poverty. Look around us. The cost of living is a burden on the majority’s back. It is an insult that there are people who cannot survive on the wages and salaries that the lowest paid Guyanese are given but expect the people to turn stones into bread when they throw them a pittance. They throw a pittance for your vote; a pittance for your intelligence; a pittance to keep you oppressed; a pittance to deceive you that they are your saviours; a pittance so that they can maintain the status quo where they live like kings and queens and you like peasants.
How do we expect massive migration from Guyana to not continue? We live in a country where people are trapped in mental slavery and refuse to remove the shackles. This is a country of trauma. It has become the norm to hear about a man hammering another in the head to death or about eight young people twenty-one and under dying on the same weekend in vehicular accidents. Of course, there are horrible occurrences worldwide, but with a population so small as ours, being so in tuned with each other’s trauma and often unable to escape the news of unfortunate events we are constantly in a fight for our sanity.
There was a time when I did not want to migrate. Whenever I would leave Guyana, after about two weeks, I would start missing home. I would also consider what it would be like not living in Guyana and settling wherever it is I was visiting. However eventually I would always dismiss the idea of migration as imminent. This time, a trip outside of Guyana came with a new perspective. Yes, the same itch to return home occurred around the two-week mark, but then allowing myself to see past the fear of migrating and seeing the gains I can make outside of Guyana and how long I have perhaps stunted my growth as a creative, I can see myself eventually migrating without fear or regret.
It used to puzzle me when I heard about or encountered people who had not returned to Guyana for ten, twenty, thirty and even forty years. I used to wonder how one could just forget about home while settling into some larger society among millions where their roots are not. I used to say that even if I migrated at some point, I needed to stay in touch with Guyana by visiting as often as I could. I would miss the beautiful things about my country. I would miss the loved ones who still live in Guyana. I would miss the beautiful offerings nature has given us, and the freedoms we have. I would still miss those things if I do migrate, but having reached a point of despair and lack of confidence that the lives of Guyanese will drastically improve soon, I can leave and understand why people continue to leave and why many who have spent decades away think they have no reason to return. They make home in other places because some believe that home did not create the social and economic conditions for them to reach their pinnacle of success and live a wholesome life. Some believe that Guyana will never move past the point of underdevelopment because of the mental slavery that exists, the politics and perhaps too many of the intelligent and highly trained having left to contribute to the development of other countries.
