Paradise continues to be lost

Feb 11, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

When I read the Saturday editorial for this newspaper about Guyana having a higher level of development than Malaysia fifty years ago, my mind went back to a conversation I had with the editor of the Catholic Standard, Colin Smith, on the Berbice ferry a long time ago.
Colin was staring into the waters when I came up. I don’t know what was going through his mind but he said to me; “Do you know in the sixties, Guyana was richer than Malaysia?” I didn’t know that and expressed surprise. Guyana is listed as one of the poorest countries in the world while Malaysia is one of the globe’s wealthiest nations
That was amazing information beyond imagination. It is like two friends who came out of high school. One in his limousine passed the other begging on the road.
Fast forward the button forty years later and the mendicant is now one of the country’s richest citizens while the former limousine owner is in the poor house.
What is the explanation? In the case of Guyana and Malaysia, the answer lies in the realm of nationalism.
In discussing the editorial with its composer on Saturday night at Kaieteur News, I leant over Adam Harris’ desk and said to him; “You know the omission in that editorial is the role of deliberate destruction.”
I elaborated. While in Malaysia and Singapore there was an obsession with development, in Guyana, our politicians were obsessed with destroying parts of the territory where the “other” people were to be found. And since the “other” was not our people why should we develop their sections.
I explained to Adam that we will never catch up with even semi-developed states because our politicians are destroying parts of Guyana which they cannot control.
It was pathetic nonsense and unadulterated asininity when I read the following statement from Henry Jeffrey in the letter pages of the Stabroek News, January 29, 2010; “I feel compelled to repeat: I do not believe that our country is in this condition because over the last half of a century our politicians have been wicked and intended this kind of backwardness.” (end of quote).
I was really livid and I fired off a reply using the location of the Berbice Bridge as a huge example of the permanent wickedness of our politicians. There was no engineering reason to locate that structure away from New Amsterdam. One and only one temptation was in the mind of the PPP leadership. It went like this – why put the bridge in a constituency that we have no control over and have no support?
The result is the near demise of New Amsterdam.
It is this deliberate evil that has caused Guyana to regress while Malaysia soared like an eagle and never looked back. The editorial did concede that ethnic preferences are going to continue to keep Guyana down, but maybe space wasn’t there for the graphic examples.Here is one such picture. One of the evil acts that shaped my implacability to the PPP rule is what I saw at UG.
No amount of nonsense from Henry Jeffrey and millions like him can change my mind about the destruction of Guyana, because our politicians rule in favour of their half and horribly neglect the livelihood of where the other half live. I saw this at UG and it has demolished that place. It is a tragedy.
When the PPP came to power, but more under Mr. Jagdeo, the conclusion was that UG was not where our people were, we have no support there, and we are not going to put money in it. Too bad if it collapses; we will spend money where we can get political mileage. UG was horribly under-funded.
Uncaring cronies and incompetent lackeys were left in charge. They decapitated that place. No new government can bring UG back in ten years’ time. That is impossible.
The key factor in the phenomenal dreamlands of Singapore and Malaysia is that their leaders were inflexible nationalists. All they wanted was to see their country develop. No one can be so silly, stupid or downright asinine to argue that the neglect of Georgetown is not a deliberate political game. The sight of Georgetown puts this land as one of the most sickening countries in the world.
No politician, whether African, Indian or any other ethnicity, should do to Georgetown what is being done to it. Guyana will never have a future unless we become like the leaders of Singapore and Malaysia – put country above partisan politics and ethnic constituency. There is no other pathway.

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Paradise continues to be lost

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