by Keith R. Williams
Whenever we proceed to analyse our current political and socio/economic situation and the circumstances that caused them to come into being, we are usually sparing in our criticism and condemnation of the general populace and our participation in the whole debacle.
It is as if “we the people” are innocent victims, lured into following the egotistical directions of our own political Pied Pipers of Hamlin. That “we the people” were conned, taken advantage of, induced into acting against our best self interest and the interest of the Nation, are the implications. The implication is that we did not land in Guyana on various occasions under various circumstances, but rather, Guyana landed on us on various occasions under various circumstances.
Well I for one believe that it is time for our politicians, and I mean those who genuinely seek to change the political environment, to begin treating our populace to some tough love. It is time to look them unwaveringly in the eye and say, “Look, the fact that we have a sh*tty political system and a bankruptcy in ethics and morality among the leadership you have had so far does not have to confine you to a political wheelchair,” or words to that effect.
The only way Guyana is ever going to be able to make that journey to a better place, is for the people to rise up and take back control over their present and future from those who have been pleasuring themselves with it over the past five decades.
I am sorry if my way of putting things offends the sensibilities of some who will read this, and for that I fervently apologise before hand. However, it is difficult to find a more appropriate description for the relationship and interaction between the populace of Guyana and those who have been at the rudder from the beginning of our political voyage.
Someone posting in our forum described an aspect of this relationship as that of an abused woman refusing to leave the side of her abuser. I believe that description is applicable to the nation in its entirety, and that the language of love with which to sever abused from abuser has to be straight and tough.
Malcolm X stood before his African American brethren and sistren in Harlem and harangued them to “get off that crack, get off that cocaine, get off that welfare.” He was demanding that they arise; that they get up and take control of the burdens that had fallen upon them due to some circumstances or the other. That they do not continue to lie in the gutter with the expectation that the forces that had circumstanced them being there, were going to pass by and pick them up.
There is a limit to how long anyone can wallow in the psychology of victim-hood. There comes a time when one has to “arise, to take up ones bed,” and to proceed onward towards taking control of ones destiny. That time is now for Guyanese.
To say that the two main population groups in Guyana have become slaves to the politics of their respective parties is not a stretch in terms of describing the relationships, nor should either group take it as an insult. If once every five or so years you get up in the morning like a robot, take yourself down to a polling booth and mark an X next to a name or symbol because of the racial make up of the organisation rather than platform policies designed to better your lot, then I figure that you are behaving as though you were on a plantation during the eighteenth century.
When those organizations in question, covertly and overtly court, encourage and nurture the tenure of such a relationship, then they are engaged in the process of making and keeping political slaves.
In a speech delivered on the banks of the James River in the colony of Virginia in 1712, the infamous Willie Lynch, a British Slave owner and the person whose name describes a form of mob justice, advised his audience among other things that it is, “NECESSARY THAT YOUR SLAVES TRUST AND DEPEND ON US. THEY MUST LOVE, RESPECT AND TRUST ONLY US.” The sometimes hidden, sometimes blatantly obvious messages conveyed to the constituents of either of Guyana’s two main political organizations are exactly the same.
One party says, “We are the only ones who can protect you from the violent criminality of them,” while the other party says, “We are the only ones who can ensure that you have an equal share of the national pie.” After fifty years this situation is no longer a speculative analysis about the motivation behind people’s actions at the polls. It is, rather, a predictable electoral behaviour, sorry to say, and an indictment of the moral will power of “we the people.”
As long as we continue to pander to the psychology of victim-hood that allows the population of Guyana to shunt the entire blame for the political present upon the shoulders of Burnham and Jagan and their respective parties, they will remain attached to the political plantations they currently occupy. For under these circumstances, there is no incentive or encouragement for them to look deeply into themselves beyond the layer of protection provided by the assignment of all blame to nationally acceptable villains.
I am not remotely suggesting that somehow this reasoning mitigates the guilt of “the plantation owners,” so to speak. Lord knows they worked assiduously to sow the seeds of enmity between the two groups. Maybe they had read Lynch’s piece where he opined, “Don’t forget, you must pitch the OLD black male vs. the YOUNG black male, and the YOUNG black male against the OLD black male. You must use the DARK skin slaves vs. the LIGHT skin slaves. But it is NECESSARY THAT YOUR SLAVES TRUST AND DEPEND ON US. THEY MUST LOVE, RESPECT AND TRUST ONLY US. Gentlemen, these kits are your keys to control. Use them. Have your wives and children use them, never miss an opportunity. IF USED INTENSELY FOR ONE YEAR, THE SLAVES THEMSELVES WILL REMAIN PERPETUALLY DISTRUSTFUL…”
Change those descriptions to those that reflect the opposing groups in Guyana and the instructions could not have been more relevant. Still, the fact remains that this has been going on for an eternity and “we the people” can no longer be given a pass. The population as a whole, Indian, African et al, have to assume a measure of responsibility for our current state.
“All the kings horses and all the kings men could not put humpty-dumpty together again”
after he had fallen off the wall and broke into several little pieces. And all of the well-meaning politicians that are working feverishly and conscientiously to bring change to our nation face the same challenges that confronted “All the kings horses and all the kings men.”
Guyana is broken politically. We have fallen off the wall of stability, rationality and commonsense. And we cannot be put back together solely by the well-meaning efforts of the politicians on the frontline. “It will take a village” as they say in Africa. There has to be an awakening in the consciousness of the Guyanese electorate and the bucket of cold water to accomplish this will come in the form of being confronted with the harsh realities of our situation, and the fact that we are not merely innocent participants in its deterioration.
We are the ones who determine who will win, who will rule, who will be allowed to get away with what. If it requires some tough love to get us to that intersection where reality and an awakening sense of responsibility collide, then I say, go for it. Nothing else seems to be working anyway.
Guyana Gazette 