Looking ahead with excited optimism

Jan 07, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The dawn of a new year always brings with it a renewed sense of hope for a better future. The past year had been quite a challenging one, not only locally, but also at the international level, which was dominated by much turbulence and social instability.
The so-called Arab Spring grabbed much of the spotlight, which saw the overthrow of several regimes through popular uprisings, starting with the overthrow of Ben Ali in Tunisia and spreading to Egypt and Libya where both the Mubarak and the Gaddafi regimes fell under the weight of popular uprisings, aided and abetted by western powers.
This year commenced with the Syrian government on the throes of an uprising that could ultimately result in yet another regime change. The Assad regime is hanging on precariously to power even though the balance of power appears to be shifting away from him. The political situation in Yemen is also at a simmering point with indications of an early exit of President Saleh.
At the economic level, the past year was not particularly good, with quite a number of western European countries forced to implement austerity measures in the face of a severe economic and financial crisis. Among the countries hardest hit were Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, the so-called PIGS countries, where millions of people were forced onto the bread line – not to mention salary cuts, wage freezes, cuts in pensions, drastic cuts in social security and other social welfare benefits. This has resulted in much turbulence at the social and political levels.
In the United States, there has also been much social unrest as income disparities become much more pronounced. The Obama administration was unsuccessful in getting Congressional support for a shift in the income tax burden which is disproportionately borne by the poor. This has resulted in a new wave of protest actions by a movement called “Occupy Wall Street” which has generated much media attention by focusing world attention on the growing income disparities between the rich and the poor.
Little wonder, the Group was met with hostility from officialdom which seems bent on muzzling the movement and preventing it from spreading to other cities and countries. The Movement however, despite fierce resistance from the authorities, managed to spread its influence across the United States and for that matter, in some other western capitals.
Here in Guyana, we were spared much of the pain and trauma that many countries experienced – both from among the developed and developing world. The country experienced positive economic growth despite a tough and gruelling international environment. Many of the bigger economies in the region and elsewhere experienced negative or at best, sluggish economic growth rates, a testimony to the prudent management of the economy by the PPP/C administration.
Among the industrialized countries, the emerging economies continue to do well economically with China and India leading the way. China has in fact overtaken Japan as the second largest economy in the world as the country continues to experience robust economic growth rates which averaged ten percent over the past two decades. This is a remarkable rate of growth that could possibly see China overtaking the United States as the largest economy in the world in another decade or two.
Meanwhile, Brazil and South Africa are also making enormous progress in terms of growth rates. Brazil has only recently overtaken Britain as the world’s sixth largest economy, quite an achievement for a Latin American country, and perhaps more importantly from our perspective, as a neighbouring country with significant economic and cultural ties.
The greatest challenge for the coming period is to address the issue of global inequity, which is at the heart of much of the economic and social crises that the world is facing. There is far too much concentration of wealth in the hands of far too few people. There are enough resources in the world to provide every individual with the means to meet the basic requirements for a decent and dignified life, but because of the skewed distribution of that wealth, millions of people go hungry and countless number of children and adults die for want of food and water. This is a crying shame on humanity as a whole. It is time for structural changes at the global level to allow for a more equitable system of trade and aid to address the issue of hunger and malnutrition among the world’s population.
Regrettably, the global facility to make this happen is yet to become operational, despite commitments by the bigger powers to advance the process. This year will be eleven years since the World Trade Organization agreed to set up the Doha Development Agenda aimed at facilitating development through trade and through better integration of the more disadvantaged into the global economy, but to date there has been little movement, due mainly to refusal of the more developed economies to address burning issues such as subsidies, dumping and other unfair trading practices which militate against the poorer economies.
We are a blessed country. Yes, we are still a poor and underdeveloped nation, but we are fortunate to have a rich endowment of natural and mineral resources which potentially can make us one of the richest nations on earth. More particularly, we have a literate and creative human resource capacity which if fully harnessed could catapult this beautiful country of ours to soaring heights. This is the challenge before us.
With national and regional elections out of the way, it is now time for all of us to put aside whatever differences we may have had and become part of this exciting task of change and development.
Hydar Ally

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