“Senza Fine” and winged impulse

Dec 22, 2013 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

---

Writer’s note: Because of the large number of people I ran into this season that I never knew migrated, I am republishing my May 8, 2008 column with three small additions. “Senza Fine” (pronounced sensa finay) is one of Italy’s great love songs only sung in English by Connie Francis and Dean Martin. It means, ‘never ending.’ Monica, the daughter of the world famous music composer, Henry Mancini (who gave us the Pink Panther theme) does it the best in the Italian language.
The song became famous after it was featured as the theme for an internationally successful movie, “Flight of the Phoenix” and reproduced recently in the movie “Ghost Ship.” Check out the beauty of the Italian singer performing the song live in front of the “jumbies’ on the ghost ship.  Both the song and the original movie have symbolic meaning for understanding where Guyana is going.
Here are some lines from this enchantingly beautiful melody that you can reflect on as the Guyanese phoenix takes daily flight;
Senza fine
Let it always be senza fine
There’s no end to our love, our hopes
Our dreams, our sighs
No end at all
No sad goodbyes
No fears, no tears
No love that dies
It’s senza fine
Let it always be sensa fine
Never ending
The sunlit days, the moonlit nights
The sea, the sand, the starlit heights
Are yours and mine forever more
Every day in this country, those who cannot leave, and those who choose not to leave keep on dreaming, clingingly dearly to the hope that like the phoenix, Guyana will rise from the ashes. For those people, it is senza fine – no end to our hopes and dreams. This writer is one of them.
But there is the other side of the coin. Every day, people in this country take flight. Guyana’s tropical romance they leave behind. They turn away from the sea, the sunlit days and moon-lit nights for cold evenings and lugubrious, winter nights. Their starry heights they will enjoy in another country, maybe in any other country except Guyana.
Some of them we know closely; some we share a strong bond with. Some of them are well loved family members. Many of these wonderful Guyanese we may never see again.
As a teacher, you see this flight in its more graphic form than in many other professions. You may work in an office and over the years, maybe a dozen of your colleagues have flown. But as a teacher, hundreds each year pass through your hand, and year after year, you watch them take winged impulse.
One of the phenomenal things I have learnt from being a teacher in this country is the inexplicable human fertility with which Guyana is naturally endowed. Despite the lack of resources in our educational system, this nation continues to produce students that are warm-hearted, learned, philosophical in their outlook, and generally embody good values comparable with any other nationality in the world. If Guyana could find a way to make these people remain here, then the phoenix will rise from the ashes.
When that would be is anyone’s guess. The future does not look bright.
As soon as someone migrates to colder but richer pastures and leaves relatives behind, we hear about the money they will send back. Statistics compiled in the US on remittances show that just over US$400M come into this country by those who took flight. Analysts and commentators have agreed that this has done immense good for Guyana.
But there is a downside to the movement of money that economists like Professor Clive Thomas and others like him have to zero in on. Capital flight has been going on in this country since Mr. Hoyte opened up the economy with his 1989 budget.
The US$400M that this land receives is not the whole story of sweet roses. Lots of foreign currency, gold and diamond leave these shores annually. I would say of that US$400M that comes in, you have to subtract over US$100M in both cash and minerals. Remember some years ago a well known established family business in the hardware division had a dispute in a Canadian court involving C’dn$2M. How did that money get to Canada?
Do you know how many Guyanese are American citizens and have enterprises here and they transfer the profits abroad. I know one guy who lives in New York. The main operation in Guyana has several branches. He selected his friend to become the CEO. The arrangement is that X amount of American dollars must be banked every month in New York for him. Whatever the CEO makes he can keep once the owner gets his target. And the target is met every month.
There are dozens and dozens of arrangements like that. It is possible more money leaves Guyana than what comes in? Hope you listen to “Senza Fine.” You would love it. Nice song.

 

 

---

---