Dear Editor,
The striking teachers of Guyana have put their pain before the public. Strike one for courage, a hard decision that had to be made. In the just concluded first week of the strike, I am reminded of the weekly willingness of those Guyanese from across Guyana, who face the cameras, show their faces, and speak their piece. Sixty weeks of a cost-of-living series that would have won the Pulitzer Prize, if we had such, for outstanding devotion to the journalism craft. A now thankless one, even perilous one, in today’s Guyana. There is a common link between the first week of the teachers’ strike, and the 60 weeks of SN’s cost-of-living series. In three words: Guyanese are hurting. In another terse three: Guyanese need help. They might be 10 a week in SN’s middle pages, or approaching closer and closer to 10,000 teachers on the streets and villages of Guyana. Bottom-line: people feel the government has not done enough for the people – poor, struggling, barely managing people – who are in dire need of material relief measures. Pay. More than has been set aside in the 2024 budget. More that is direct and tangible. More for the poor people, a little less for putty, paint, and partying.
This was what was heard during the few minutes I spent on the strike line on Friday. The midday sun was hot, passions warmer, the emotional commitment fierce in the grim determination absorbed. It is do, or die. Something will have to give. A member of the media asked me a long question, and a longer answer was given. There is money, and a glance in the direction of the $7B reserve fund (budgetary arrangement) holds the answer. Other workers are watching. There is no telling at the time of this writing what they are thinking, maybe moving towards. What all the politicians (all) shrink from will have to be faced at some time or the other. It is a word starting with ‘r.’. The world says we are rich, and it is per person, not per segment, not per politics. Not per leadership callousness and self-serving calculatedness.
Striking is neither a frivolous occupation, nor a fun condition. Especially when an increasingly authoritarian government is the party faced. The lingering recollection of week was the announcement of cutting of collection of union dues. Before that, a learned (don’t ask me in what) minister declared any such strike “illegal.”
In the heat of the strike, the government’s first reactions were tinged with what was inflammatory. Bosai and Rusal come to mind. A government purportedly for the people, doing battle against the people. We have seen that before: court appeals, high leadership felonies, low lackeys taking their cue against conscientious objectors, houses bulldozed, the police unleashed, the state media converted to a monstrosity to mangle dissenters. I am a born contrarian. Last week it was the turn of teachers. Political. Racial. Illegal. Somehow everybody forgot those little elements of life, and reducing those impediments to dignified living, through the financially sound, the economically strengthening. Plus, decisions at leadership levels that drip of the moral and the ethical, for their fairness and balance. To emphasize, I nod at stone, stand, cement, steel. And shenanigans. Look who does well, and who they are. Learn who is left behind, when all the gravy in a staggering stream of numbers is dished out.
Guyana is the talk of the world, and Guyanese teachers forced to talk strike language, then delivering through action. Week two is ahead, and I prepare to strike the keys harder. The streets are inviting also.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall