Gandhi’s social sins are common in Guyana

Oct 05, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
October 2 was the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi’s birthday, or Gandhi Jayanti, is celebrated every year as the International Day of Non-Violence. The Mahatma, who was born on 2 October 1869, would have turned 141 this year.
At a ceremony held at the Botanical Garden which has a statute of Gandhi, many great things were said about him. The most important thing that I remembered after leaving the ceremony (which was hosted by the Indian Cultural Centre, led by High Commissioner Mr. Subit Kumar Mandal) was the statement Gandhi made: “My life is my message”.
Today, as we move blindly into another election with leadership that is woefully inadequate and comatose, Guyana is a tragic distortion of economic, social, political and cultural life for most of its citizens. Guyana is in the mess it is in because of poor political, religious, social leadership that has taken us into deep darkness and evil.
Guyana’s leaders are paralyzed by ethnic memories of dominance, the lack of emotional intelligence and a special type of heartlessness that is surpassed only by their intellectual shortcomings. They are visionless and indifferent to the concept of human rights, human needs and justice. They are greed mongers and power mongrels, fatally encapsulated in this prison by their limited intellect and humanity.
Gandhi’s words are very relevant to today’s Guyana. We are in the dire mess we are in because of what Gandhi defined as the “seven social sins”: politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.
Our politics is without principle. Our constitution which is our social contract is not only pernicious but it allows average human beings to become all powerful.
The colonial Westminster winner-take-all model is an instrument of “gross repugnancy and inequity”. It has institutionalized our “den of racial inequity and disharmony”. It is anti-human rights given our multi-racial heritage and is the fundamental source of our moral and political degeneracy. Racism is one of the highest forms of human rights abuse. It has led to Slavery. It has led to Apartheid. In Guyana, it has led to marginalisation, executive and political gangsterism, underdevelopment, poverty that burns the eyes and scorches the heart, and generational destruction of Guyanese of all races, especially Africans, Indians and Amerindians.
Shared governance is a fundamental human right for all Guyanese, but unenlightened leadership prevents this as it conflicts with the “blood money”, insidious corruption, drugs and the criminal benefits so obtained.
Wealth without work is rampant in Guyana. As Dr. Clive Thomas has said and as every Guyanese and foreign capital knows: “There is the existence of a cabal or coterie of persons comprised mainly, but not exclusively, of selective crime bosses, state officials, security personnel, elements of the criminal justice system and political bosses, advisors and other insiders. The combination is unique and derives from the particular historical antecedents as well as social, economic and political circumstances in Guyana.
This group as identified wields enormous power as well as commands considerate economic wealth. As the ruling elite this group has placed itself above the reaches of domestic law while at the same time leading the political charge in Guyana for law, order, public safety and human security”.
Roger Khan is just one of many that will spend many years repentant in US prisons.
This has led to what Gandhi calls: pleasure without conscience. You see it everywhere. Wealth without class. Wealth without intelligence. Pigs with lipstick on: yellow, pink and white lipstick.
The religious community has some of its key players caught up in this Sodom and Gomorrah. They have become a commercial
joint venture in the name of God and with Satan as their lawyers. So are some union bosses and university leaders.
Knowledge without character. This is a common occurrence in Guyana. Many are degreed but illiterate to morality and justice. The primary purpose of education is character. Not being illegally wealthy. If you have character, you will be rich in body, in mind, in spirit. If you have character, you will be able to overcome bad times. If you have character, you will be able to enjoy and share good times with your friends and family. If you have character, you will have the integrity to share your wealth, or knowledge with others less fortunate. If you have character….you will never support the Westminster system.
Commerce without morality, another of Gandhi’s social sins, abounds in Guyana. Cheap products that have expired dates, insatiable  corruption in the highest of places, hidden deals and hidden stolen assets, greed beyond redemption and the egregious  lust for blood  money through the sale of drugs…..plagues this sad country.
Science without humanity, another of Gandhi’s seven social sins is observed every time you go to the Public Hospital and the political and legal quacks that abound. Human indifference has unconsciously replaced technology, kindness, empathy and the Hippocratic Oath.  “Woe unto ye doctors and lawyers”. And religious men. Quackery is the new science. Religion is the new technology.
Worship without sacrifice is the final social sin. Our religious community is full of con artists of the most insincere form. I wonder when they meet their God, how rich they will be. They preach “do unto others as you would have then do unto you”. Then they go out and do the despicable opposite. They want power and they want wealth. They compromise the most basic of religious values because they want to be Players. They have become commercial joint ventures in the name of God, with Satan as their lawyers. Our political leaders hardly go to religious institutions. Our religious leaders worship our political gods
Guyana needs leadership that has the emotional intelligence to realise that another election will only bring the country to the racial brink and further moral degeneration. With a heavily armed but “illiterate to the bone” joint services, politicians are really playing Russian roulette with their own lives.  Those vying for contention to be the maximum leader of Guyana are mostly vexations to the spirit when you realise their non-involvement with justice, racial harmony and intelligent thought. Jumbies. Listen to their language. Listen to their non vision. Look at their actions. When last have they aided someone or some community? Look at them and cringe.
Gandhi would cry and so will the citizens of Guyana.
Given the current crop of leaders. Given their indifference to justice and equality and their penchant for seeing everything though racial prisms, we need to pray for redemption. They epitomise the seven social sins of immorality that characterize this nation. All of them.
If Gandhi were alive, he would be in opposition to the PPP. He would have asked the potential leaders of the PNCR to stop smoking the herb that makes them tell their followers they will win an election. With the AFC, he would just pray for them.
To Guyanese, he would say, do not go to another election without constitutional change.
Eric Phillips

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