Freddie Kissoon – The disheveled society

May 23, 2008 Freddie Kissoon

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In Guyana one can clearly see the connection between social dishevelment and visionless, lackluster, uninspiring and jejune leadership. When leadership is driven by nationalist instincts, then progress is inevitable. What it means is that rulers are motivated by love of country.

Sadly in Guyana, the way our party system evolved, power instincts took the place of nationalist pride and it has been like that since the PPP and PNC split in the fifties. Our leaders want power for power sake, so they are not going to pursue nationalist dreams and patriotic ideals. This is where the developed countries have left the Third World behind.

One can say that the former colonial masters have grown up. After Independence, they fell victim to the “white man’s burden.” European rulers felt guilty about colonialism so they arranged a package of aid that was to last forever. Their guilt complex about what they did to the Third World drove them to the protection syndrome.

But while aid was motivated by feelings of regret in Europe, the very aid was doing to the Third World what colonialism itself has done – create a mentality of dependence. A bizarre result emerged after Independence to the colonies in the fifties. In helping to clear their conscience for what they did to the Third World, the Europeans were in fact reinforcing the negative side of colonialism through a system of guaranteed aid.
Aid was taken and used irresponsibly. More importantly, aid removed any likelihood of ingenuity, vision and nationalism in the post-Independence leaders in the developing territories. Once there was aid, there was no need to think, to innovate and to plan. Third World power wielders became intellectually barren. Whenever they wanted a bridge, a school or a highway, they asked for help.

Aid became an enemy of progress. It was the twin combination of President Ronald Reagan in the US and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the UK that made an assault on the sociological usefulness of aid. For both of these leaders, giving money to the developing countries was a waste of time. It was better to dictate to them that they pursue economic blueprints that would generate self-sustaining growth. In other words, it was time to stop relying on hand-outs and think about generating wealth.

There were lots of things that were wrong with the ultra-conservative ideologies of these two leaders. But they got it right when it came to aid. The collapse of the Cold War, newer issues in international relations, the creation of the World Trade Organisation and the dire struggle to survive in a world of relentless competition among nations have led to the death of the white man’s burden, the white man’s guilt and guaranteed aid.

It was not easy for Third World leaders to accept that the hand-outs were going. They fought valiantly to retain them. They went to London to beseech UK’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to ease the severity of the withdrawal. But they were talking to the wrong man. Blair was a Thatcherite when it came to the purpose of aid.

It can easily be predicted what will happen now. You will have two types of Third World countries. The disheveled ones will aimlessly drift about hoping that international lending agencies will continue to bail them out. The others will be the road to Ireland, Singapore and Argentina.

The first two are small countries with small populations but large growth rates. Though the European Union did help Ireland substantially, nationalist spirits and leadership astuteness made Ireland one of the most, if not the most, economically stable nation in Europe.

Sad to say, Guyana belongs to the first category. If the IDB does not come to our rescue, we will go down sooner than later. This territory does not generate wealth to sustain itself. No greater example do we have than the Berbice Bridge. Promised in the PPP’s manifesto of 2001, it only became a reality in 2006.
Between 2001 and 2006, the path to its construction was a huge embarrassment to the people of this country. More importantly, it showed how economically poor a nation we are.

First, the IDB refused to finance it. Then the sums cited by several foreign companies were a deterrent because these investors felt that the return on their money would take too long to come so they opted out. Eventually the barest of bridges (absolutely devoid of any modern aesthetics that you find with such a construction over water–Suriname has a handsome structure) was chosen.

The use of NIS funds was a terrible mistake that will cost this country dearly. The state didn’t have money to finance the bridge. The state didn’t have money to build a bigger CARICOM Secretariat. Now CARICOM will have to rent office space from a company in Turkeyen.

All around in Guyana, we see evidence of the disheveled society and its relation to mediocre leadership. We beg for money from countries that are serious about all types of development, while we choose to remain a backward place. Suriname has banned the use of cell phones while driving.

In Guyana cows stray all over the roadways in the nights and innocent people die when cars crash into them. But there are no laws to punish their owners. We are a huge agricultural country yet high food prices are killing the poorer class. What next? The usual bread and circus. Carifesta comes to town.

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