Liberation of creative energies of our youth will solve our economic insecurity

Dec 05, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,
I wish to “block a sound” (Rastafarian way of saying “to say”) on Mr. Sharma Solomon’s letter “Economic security for Linden is not a hopeless dream”.
It is meritorious and like Mr. Frank Fyffe demonstrates that there are still people who care enough to think beyond themselves.
Theirs is an example which needs to be multiplied thousands of times over.
I wish also to comment on the issue of job creation and foreign investment as a means towards economic security, and immediately add, that, the only plausible avenue to economic security for a community such as Linden is its own involvement in the production and distribution of the goods and services which it consumes.
This type of activity must underpin its economic activities. Outside investment then becomes a bonus. The history of Linden lends support to this theory as neither the successes of Demba nor Omai have lent to our economic security.
I also opine that Linden’s economic security is rooted in among others, the correction of three specific and non specific legacies of the town as a mining town.
Firstly, the bauxite industry’s non-desire for its workers to be economically secure.
Secondly, a general mis-education of Afrikans in Guyana into believing that a good education and a good job were the virtues of life.
Thirdly, poor community leadership, which is mendacious at the least and at the best, virtually non-existent.
As I reflect, Linden seems to be more a reference to a geographical space than to a community of people with shared ideas of any sort, clear social objectives or a well defined economy.
I concur with Mr. Solomon when he says that many of our young people wish to participate in some meaningful way to the town’s development.
For this to happen there must be a social and political activism which transforms our education.
An education, which, teaches us to postpone the gratifications derived from entertainment, and invest in producing and distributing what we eat and wear will serve the town better than other overtures green or not. It is different, when we forego for ten years and invest in productive endeavors, the billions of dollars spent each year on non productive activities such as Town Week, the Kashif and Shanghai football tournament, various questionable religious expenses, fashion shows and partying. It is different with a teaching, which tells us, that our brains and brawn together with the capital generated from the foregoing, that we can make or acquire and distribute the things we use. That Linden can become a net exporter of goods and services.
The economic, job and financial insecurity of the people of Linden is a legacy of the Demba days. Of a day when the imagination and creativity was to get a job with the company. It informs the structure of the town’s political economy which still depends on this insecurity to maintain the status quo.
It is the liberation of the creative energies of those same youth who roam the streets that is the solution to our economic insecurity.
It is also about ten thousand of us becoming Stan Smiths, Baljits, Barrows, Singhs, Majids, Roys and Dartys.
Jonathan Adams

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