Digging deep

Dec 24, 2008 Editorial

It is just one day before Christmas Day and we may be forgiven if we have developed a sneaking suspicion that we are being tested by higher powers.
First there was the fanfare in the press and other media about the financial meltdown in the developed countries. At the time there was much speculation as to whether the problems up north would hit our pockets by squeezing the flow of remittances that topped up our wages here and gave us the wherewithal to keep our heads above water.
Well, the jury is in and couldn’t have come at a worse time: not only have the remittances been slashed drastically but the barrels that made Santa Claus real for most of us have also been reduced.
Then, of course, there are the rains. We like to joke that what comes from above is a blessing, but surely our cup (not to mention our streets and yards) has been running over too many times in the past few years.
We know that climate change is a global reality and tropical storms and rains have now intensified all across the tropics but it does not stop us from asking, “Why us?” We know that the authorities have deployed manpower and equipment across the coast in the effort to expel the water but the stagnant reality still bears down on our psyches.
But with all our travails we expect that we as a people will dig deep inside ourselves and ensure that we have a Merry Christmas. This is a Guyanese tradition that will not be so easily wiped out.
Even though overtly a Christian festival, our history has ensured that on this one issue there is complete unanimity: Hindus, Muslims, Bahai’s, Rastafarians and every other believer will, on this day, lower the artificial barriers that have been created to divide our society and make the day special.
With all the doomsayers having a field day, Georgetown was still crowded with shoppers – even though they might have had to track down the bargains a bit more fervently.
This national accord is not something that just appears within a people and it ought not to be taken for granted; rather, we should use it to help dispel the negativities that have appeared in our midst.
The publisher of this newspaper was only one of several other Guyanese who, immersed in the spirit of goodwill that marks this season, reached out and touched others who may have been otherwise dispirited.
This is not a matter of helping others who are “needy” – that is an abominable expression that demeans the recipients of our goodwill and ought to be banished from our vocabulary. We all ought to emulate their examples and reach out to our Guyanese brothers and sisters and children in trying to fulfil our own aspiration to make real our national motto of becoming “one people”.
A nation is as a family and Christmas is a time that reminds us of this oft forgotten goal.
We should also remind ourselves that our circumstances are not all gloom and we ought to acknowledge that which has gotten better in the past year.
For one, our Disciplined Forces have dug deep within themselves and have gone a far way in rolling back the forces of anarchy that threatened to tear us asunder as a people, and which kept us all huddled in our homes at night, fearful of the shattering of our doors and the fire of the “big guns”. Let us not begrudge the bonus that they were awarded but rather wish them well in that their Christmas was brightened after a year of literally facing fire.
Let us remember those who have fallen within our midst and make a concerted effort to connect with their relatives and friends who will miss them most grievously this Christmas.
Their loss is our loss in the most immediate sense for we can all truly pray, “There for the grace of God, go I.” It is said that we are all tested by adversity: let us ensure that we pass our present test like true Guyanese and make sure that we all have a Merry Christmas. We are, in the end, our brother’s (and sister’s) keepers.

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