Guyana needs the light of Diwali

Nov 10, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
As we celebrate Deepavali or Diwali much is said about its significance to Hindus. It is said to signify the victory of good over evil. Additionally, the lights that illuminate Hindu homes are supposed to also bring lights to hearts and with this light, the hope that there is new reason and hope.
From “darkness unto light” — the light that empowers Hindus to commit themselves to good deeds, those that bring them closer to divinity.
Guyana has become a country of “utter darkness”. To deny this is to deny truth….and light. Racism is darkness. Corruption is darkness. Immorality is darkness.
Voting to prolong a political system that is racist and discriminatory goes against the Golden Rule of  “of  do unto others as you will have them do to you”. This universal ethical code of morality is found in Hinduism in the words, “This is the sum of all duty: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.”
Mahatma Gandhi once said  “be the change you want to see”. If Hindus desire a fair and just Guyana then a system of Government that promotes equality and equity will be the change Hindus would want to see instead of the current Westminster system of divide and rule; Africans versus Indians. This change is called Shared Governance.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said “Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.”
Listen to hate in bottom house meetings is not “light”. It is darkness.
The Westminster system has brought darkness unto Guyana and it will consume all of us. It has already consumed most of Guyana’s light in the name of Aphan Jhaat and the “politics of greed and revenge”.
The politics of “lawlessness and gangsterism.” Daily in Guyana, anyone can be killed, murdered, robbed, rapped or discriminated against including the most devout Hindu, Christian or Muslim. Drug lords are dignified by the title….businessmen. In a sense, they are engaged in the business of death, corruption, extrajudicial killings and immorality.
“Light” in Guyana can only be brought back through a change in political system. We are a country of Lawlessness. Witness the following:
1. Our Parliamentarians make laws for us but they belong to groups that are not legal entities. Neither the PPP nor PNC are legal entities. The AFC have tried in their usual deception to finesse this. They have a legal corporation with Khemraj, Raphael and Sheila as directors but their Party itself is no different from the other two.
Darkness and lawlessness in Guyana begins with this fundamental reality. Can you imagine Parliamentarians are making laws that govern us but they themselves in their Political Parties are not subject to any laws other than the ones they decide for themselves?
2. Our Political leaders want us to register and vote. They want us to go to a place of poll, show an ID, and then vote. But in reality, they do not follow the same rules they want us to follow. Thus we have rigging, voting by the show of hands (this prevented Carrington from getting more votes in his contest against Khemraj (called peer pressure in other places) and a few people making decisions for all. How is it ETHICAL for them to create their Party List without our involvement but we are forced to vote for it? Party Lists are undemocratic and show contempt for voters. Lawyers understand the word CONTEMPT better than we do.
This is darkness not light. And surely not enlightenment. This is so morally repugnant that one has to revert to the statement “only in Guyana”. It is also very telling that these Parties are populated with lawyers and these Parties have no legal status or constitutions that have to be legally approved like any other registered entity.
3. We are forced to pay taxes or be fined and sent to jail. Or, we cannot leave the country on an airplane. But Political Parties not only don’t pay taxes, they don’t have to show anyone what they have collected and from whom. This is the height of  political  dishonesty and gangsterism. We are to obey laws that they don’t have to obey.
4. After the last elections, the President of Guyana illegally appointed Cabinet Members before they were appointed as Parliamentarians. The AFC , a Party of Lawyers, sued and even though the Constitution supported their argument,  the partisan Attorney General, another lawyer who is sworn to uphold the Constitution, protected the President from this lawlessness.
The correct response would have been for both the PNC and AFC to not to go Parliament. Their duty free cars prevented them from their moral, legal and civil DUTY.
Lawlessness prevails.
Guyana is a modern day political, social, cultural and economical tragedy—a lawless society. We all know this regardless of which political party or race one belongs to. To deny this is part of the tragedy and magnificent illusion we live in.
A central part of the tragedy is that we are locked in the past. This is purposeful. This is racial. Many times as I read the letters to the Editor or blogs, one thing is absolutely clear. Going to other Westminster winner-take-all Executive Presidency elections will not help Guyana. Rather, it will plunge us deeper into darkness. And we are in darkness. Crime, drugs, conspicuous immorality, insatiable corruption, racial malice and illiteracy have all let us here.
As we celebrate Diwali….the triumph of light over darkness…..we are rushing or creeping into another Westminster election. We are “rushing into further darkness”.
What we need is a ‘rush to Light”. We need a Government of National Unity. We need light.
Eric Phillips

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