Dear Editor,
Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro has upped the stakes on Guyana. On paper, in rhetoric, he is going for broke. Like many Guyanese, there is the hope that such a day doesn’t come. But there is no avoiding facing reality. I have read about elections considerations and citizen distractions, among other stratagems employed by Maduro. His country, having made its claim-spurious in essence and expression, it would take a better man than Maduro to pause from hurtling toward the brink. He has done his own assessments and thinks that he stands a good chance to prevail. Either through the preoccupation of the international community, or the indifference of the Guyanese citizenry. For its part, the PPP Government has spoken incessantly about, constantly reaches for, the support of the international community. It is a good start. But adjacent to that, the political opposition must be engaged and should have occurred before yesterday. Not just when there is a flareup (development) in Venezuela that only then there is some friendly spark about the opposition in the government here.
My impression is of other priorities that drain energies and take the national eye off the Venezuelan menace. Guyanese are privy (I am) to the temperature of the local political relationship. They are also familiar with the racial and social disgruntlements, disillusions, and disgusts. They are not only from traditional opposition corners. Yet, little is done to repair the impaled ambience that is now so much embedded in the local environment. Patrimony is only a section of it, but a huge one. Instead, there is visceral satisfaction in the government in going in the opposite direction. In sum and substance, Guyana is a leaking ship. To continue with the nautical imagery, it lists badly, but stays afloat somehow. There is no secrecy about this weakened state. Yet, the business-as-usual mentality, and the mad race to slander and cripple the other side takes precedence. At the highest elevations of national governance there is contentment with forgetting, or ignoring, that there is still another side, and it is the one across the border, wherever whoever wants to demarcate it.
Guyana needs every Guyanese on the same page, with the same mindset. A Guyana standing as one body, speaking with one voice. Not just on Venezuela, but on the routines and passionate affairs of our existence. We were busy frightening ourselves with chatter late last year about existential crisis, and rightly so. Pardon me, but our biggest crisis is ourselves; the crisis here gives a man like Maduro ideas, fuels his ambitions. Our present reality is the best confirmation. The PPP government’s first call, first thought, is to the international community. A necessity; but a more vital necessity is to shore up the home front first; or at least in conjunction with immediate international outreaching. The government engaging the opposition must be just as immediate, and not as a matter of politeness but a matter of encircling all Guyana. For there is this other consideration placed before fellow citizens. This country can get all the visits, all the moral and vocal support that it can from the international community. But at the forefront of the border milieu, or because of Maduro’s actions, there still must be the mind and muscle of Guyanese.
A Guyana being the way that it is presently is a weak force, even a losing cause. All the flag waving, chanting, whistling come to naught if hearts are not truly enmeshed in what is a long fight for national existence, national pride, and national assets. There can be (and is) the traditional fooling of self in high places that outsiders will take over the fight and stand ahead of us. Indeed, the internationals have a vested, unparalleled interest in Guyana. Not ideology, but money and profitability and the contributions of those to their own economies. We either come to our senses, or Maduro will see that we get some the hard way. Politics has no place, or such an unchallengeable one, when there is any material menace to the motherland. When our matrimony to this land comes to mean what it should, then the first call, the first turn, the first whisper is to the neighbour right here. All defenses start there; and there should and could be no better partner. I hope I have made myself clear.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
