Dear Editor,
“Why dis lamp ain’t light, why dis house in darkness, the kerosene bottle empty??” My mother’s voice echoed in the darkness. The truth is, there was no explanation because children do things that defy logic. We played in the darkness rather than reach for the matches and light the lamp. “There is no excuse for this house to be in darkness because there is a full bottle of kerosene oil in the kitchen.” She would furiously utter. If she asks President Irfaan Ali the question as to why there is daily blackout in Guyana, his answer would cause her to be livid with him because Guyana has oil; billions of barrels of oil and there are blackouts every second of the day. A nation tolerates the PPP government’s excuses.
A professor from Canada told me that Guyanese people are accepting of anything. She said no country with intelligent people would accept daily and lengthy power outages when the country has oil wealth. She said there can be no excuse because it is downright mismanagement coming from an uncaring administration. The professor told me that if a government is allowed to getaway away with that, we have to examine what sort of citizens occupy that country. My mother never questioned whether we could find the matches because the box was always in a special drawer and within reach even in the dark. Mo Fyah Slow Fyah is dead. The matches are there but like children, a nation defies logic and with no sensible explanation, continues to wallow in the dark.
The world is watching us and the evidence is piling up as to who we are as Guyanese. Is there any atrocities visited on us that we would refuse to tolerate?
Sincerely,
Norman Browne
Social and Political Activist