Awaiting a self fulfilling prophecy

Oct 27, 2012 Editorial

There is something called self-fulfilling prophecy. Simply put, it means that if one projects the view that he or she expects something to happen then when that thing happens, the person who projected the view would somehow be satisfied in the fact that he or she had contended that this thing was going to happen.
There is a lot of that in Guyana and the people who are most likely to project self-fulfilling prophecy would be the pessimists. They always expect the worse. There are people who always expect the worse and they abound in Guyana. There are people who would say that nothing good can ever come out of the country.
They preach or propagate this idea that pretty soon it actually spreads because there are many other pessimists in the society. The result in the past has been mass migration. Just about everyone started to look for a life outside of Guyana because in their view, nothing good will ever come out of Guyana. In fact, this concept has been modified to now state that Guyana will never get good.
While this may be the case once the parliamentarians behave the way they do; once people insist on partisan politics; and once there is ethnic distrust the country is bound to suffer. Indeed, the ethnic issue has always been present in many countries. At one time in the history of some countries, the smaller ethnic population was often decimated or subsumed by the majority.
This was the case in North America when the white settlers confronted the native Indians.
It was the same in this corner of the world when the new people came face to face with the Amerindians and again when human traders, often white, came into contact with the Africans.
In some parts of the world there is ethnic tolerance and one can assume that there is some measure of ethnic tolerance in Guyana.
However, the distrust far outweighs the tolerance with the result that the vote at election time is more often than not, based on ethnic considerations.
And so it is that the parliamentarians are almost always at loggerheads over issues and these issues are always projected to assume ethnic political proportions.
So we see comparisons between what happens in an Afro centric community and an Indocentric one. We judge actions along racial lines and we conclude that Guyana can never get good.
This past week, the Cabinet Secretary exhibited a case of self fulfilling prophecy.
He told the media that the government will be moving to parliament for supplementary funding for the security services. He expects the worst because the parliamentary opposition wants to see the back of Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee.
The very parliamentary opposition shouted Rohee down when he sought to pass a previous Bill in the National Assembly.
The Cabinet Secretary expects more of the same. If that happens then he would actually enjoy a self fulfilling prophecy. Already he has said, and he did say it as though it has already happened, that the parliamentary opposition would starve the security forces of funds.
The nation would like to believe that as politicians the parliamentarians would be smart enough to deal with issues rather than personalities.
They may not wish Rohee to present the Bills since their desire is to silence him in the National Assembly in keeping with the no confidence vote. But the House has other means of presenting the Bills and these will be invoked.
The government, which seems to revel in confrontation since it has adopted a policy of refusing to heed the political opposition, will insist that Rohee presents the supplementary Bills.
Fortunately, that should not be the end of the matter but for all intents and purposes the government may very well wish for the Cabinet’s self fulfilling prophecy.

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Awaiting a self fulfilling prophecy

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