Dave Martins’s song “Not A Blade of Grass” is playing on steroids right now and while there is a heightened sense of national pride across certain sections of the population due to the border controversy, there is a big part of me that can’t help but to interrogate the phrase, “is we own” that is being plastered everywhere.
While it is understandably used to defend Guyana’s territory against state aggressors and those that wish to pronounce it theirs, when it is chanted and repeated I wonder how it makes those with natural connection and birthright to land, but still waiting on the sidelines for years for its access, feel. Housing access, that is deemed a human right, for many can only be accelerated based whether or not they know somebody or know somebody who knows somebody.