Guyana: A Belizean student shames a nation of sheep

Jun 27, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

My cousin said to me; “I was looking out for part two of the analysis of Hoyte being one of the best leaders in the world after reading part one.” I promised him it will be done, but I told him this is Guyana, where wrongs and violations grow faster than the combined parapets of grass all over the country, including the jungles, and what you plan to write tomorrow never gets done.
Part two of Hoyte’s great role in the post colonial world should be completed next week, but I can hardly cope with the mountain of things that overwhelm a columnist. Just look at Ramotar. Each time he opens his mouth, a critical columnist has a story. And Ramotar opens his mouth quite often.
Just look at Luncheon. Each time he opens his mouth, a columnist gets a neat article. And Luncheon opens his mouth incessantly. Look at the PPP Government. From day to day, the mistakes are colossal. The columnist steps into a goldfield.
Wednesday morning, ATM users of Republic Bank had a torrid time. I was right behind Kellawan Lall. What happened at those machines on Wednesday was horrifyingly typical of Republic Bank ATM machines. Lall and I and eight others experienced a horror story. That was to be the column for today, but I went home and read the newspapers that featured a Belizean law student teaching the Guyanese nation how to open your mouth to speak about the wrongs that go on in Guyana.
The ATM story, like the Hoyte column, will have to wait until next week. For now, let’s look at what that student did. He focused on areas of the cause of UG’s dilapidation that no UG staff member had the courage at that meeting to echo.
The issue was UG’s consultation with students on the intended rise in fees. It was an open forum. The student got up, took the microphone, and in a blunt style enumerated to a listening Vice-Chancellor, the persistent problems at UG over the past decades. Then his language was joined by a gesticulating moment that brought applause from the students. But no Guyanese student was willing to join this foreign young man. They stayed in their seats and clapped. What was interesting when you saw the action on television was that the Guyanese student leader stood next to his Belizean counterpart and showed no emotions.
Was it just by accident that a foreigner had to take the lead and speak about the unfairness of unconditional imposition of student fees? No, it was not. That Belizean student, who lives in Guyana, knows the country he is living in. Perhaps he sees the sheepishness of Guyanese for each day he lives in Guyana.
At that moment when the floor was open, he grabbed the opportunity to save Guyana.
And why was he the first to denounce the nature of the fees increase? (He didn’t reject it but wanted guarantees, and said that judging by past experiences the increase will come, but not the promises of accompanying improvement) Because he must have told himself that he doesn’t want to be part of a school of sheep that this nation has come to be known as. The Belizean gentleman must have said that if he didn’t step forward then the entire thing would end up as a fiasco. And it did not because he came forward and had plenty to say.
As to the increase in fees, the night before the consultation, I told Dr. Melissa Ifill over the phone, that I would have to part company with the unions at UG over the fee increase issue, even though I was vice-chairman for the workers’ union.
I cannot for strict ideological reasons, support paid education at UG. I told her education is a human right and the state of Guyana should provide free education to Guyana’s youths. I did say to Dr. Ifill that one of the great things President Burnham had going for his legacy is that he believed in complete, free education.
The most obnoxious part of the argument for fees increase at UG is that since the past twenty years the exchange rate with the US dollar has gone way up, but the fees are still pegged to what the US dollar was twenty years ago.
Who has been running the country for twenty years? Who caused the US dollar to float away? Why should the students pay for the economic mismanagement of the PPP Government? Why is a government that spends tax dollars on building a Marriott and spends forty-eight million dollars each year on the President’s foreign trips not providing free university education?

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Guyana: A Belizean student shames a nation of sheep

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