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How does one change the Guyanese “entrenched mindset”?

Feb 25, 2012 Letters

 

DEAR EDITOR,
I read Mr Maxwell’s analytical letter of Thursday, February 23rd, about the crime situation in today’s Guyana.
As a colony, Guyana (then British Guiana), had a strict class system, and there was a solid educated or moneyed middle class, and ‘everyone knew his/her place’ – at least we were expected to, and if we forgot it, there was always someone around to remind us.  (The colour of one’s skin, the texture of one’s hair also played a part).
In the mid-1950s in London, an English social worker told me that of all the colonies he visited, B.G. was the most snobbish and social-conscious of the lot.  He wanted to go around and meet ‘ordinary’ people, but was prevented from doing so, because, he was told, “we do not mix”.
Of course, there was corruption but it was not widespread. I remember a scandal in the early 1950s involving a public outfit dealing with the distribution of commodities. The matter was dealt with diplomatically and quietly, some of the wrongdoers hastily leaving the country.
Quoting from the abovementioned letter: “The punishing poor…………to change their fortunes……go out, buy a gun and try to make millions in a single night.”
I refer to such actions as overt criminal activity and the rich, or aspiring rich, with their drug cartels, etc and exploitation of the innocent, as covert criminal activity.  Both forms of criminal behavior are wrong and deserving of punishment.
How does one change the Guyanese “entrenched mindset”?  One has to remember this lawlessness has been around for almost 50 years, which means that two generations of our people know no other way of life.  Back in the mid-1990s, when I told some young men in their 20s about what went on for almost 3 months in the 1960s in the lead-up to Independence, they were aghast – no one had ever mentioned those things to them.  One wonders why.
About the “need to change the system and to lead this country to its promise”, someone, somewhere, with divine guidance, might one day be able to do so.  One fervently hopes so.  Fingers crossed.
Geralda Dennison

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