Can we in Guyana reclaim our humanity in 2015?

Feb 13, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Whichever party wins the general elections in May this year, doesn’t mean that human rights violation will disappear. In my opinion, the human rights landscape will improve tremendously if APNU or AFC wins.
I most sincerely believe in my mind that the PPP leadership is so far gone in the direction of irrational thinking that I cannot see redemption. I most honestly believe so. I believe power inebriation has destroyed the PPP’s psychology and the entire leadership cannot reclaim it, because it is no longer there.
I cannot even in the remotest way see a Granger or Nagamootoo presidency turning a blind eye to state atrocities. I may be wrong, but that is the way I see it. But you can put a hundred Grangers and a hundred Nagamootoos in power in Guyana, Guyana has become a deformed society over the past twenty years and the major manifestation of this is an uncaring country.
People in this land have lost their compassion. They have lost the meaning of life. This mental sarcoma will not just disappear from the society if there is a new government. Guyana will still have doctors that will treat poor patients with utter contempt at the public hospitals. This must stop in 2015.
This columnist knows of dozens of cases where doctors at the public hospitals have not uttered even one word to family members as to their diagnosis. I would ask family members what is the problem and they would tell me that they don’t know. That is because the doctor didn’t discuss the medical condition with them. This is an open fact at the state-run institutions, and this heartlessness must come to an end in 2015.
Guyana will still have bad policemen. It will be a formidable pursuit to root out anti-social behaviour in the police force. The simple fact is so simple that it needs no education to understand – the police in Guyana do not have and want to have a culture of service and respect. This will have to change if there is a change of government, but the task will be Herculean.
It is no exaggeration to say that the police force disrespects the citizenry. Once you enter the police station as an arrested person, wherever that police station is, it doesn’t matter if you are accused of illegal parking, littering or offensive language, the police in that station will treat you with disrespect as if you are a common thief. It will be an onerous burden that a non-PPP Government will have to bear. The police force needs immediate administrative fumigation from top to bottom.
One of the saddest aspects of life in this deformed, mentally shattered nation is the loss of humanity. Untold numbers of poor workers have lost their lives in private employment and their relatives have never received a cent. No one cares about them. We have no human rights organizations in this country to champion their cause.
I may be wrong, but I believe that an employee who has lost limbs in a trawler incident is yet to receive compensation.
Countless guards have been killed on duty and their wives received a pittance; some did not receive anything. One of the concrete shields these heartless employers use against the surviving families is to advise the families to take legal action against them. They know that will never work. The families don’t have the money for legal consultation and even if they find a sympathetic lawyer, the anarchistic nature of the judicial system will mean that those cases will be heard ten or fifteen years after.
2015 must see the end of the snubbing of trade unions in Guyana. Employers hate trade unions. They must be made to face the reality – trade unions are a fact of life. There are huge business places that do not want unionized workers. Republic Bank employees have trade union representation in Trinidad; there is none in Guyana.
Many financial houses and insurance companies have no trade union presence. The Marriott Hotel has none. Large private schools like Mae’s, School of the Nations and Marian Academy have none. In a dead society like this, small family-owned businesses with unscrupulous owners treat their workers like slaves.
I know one supermarket that refuses to give a day off. Another supermarket offers a day off every two weeks.
I am hoping that the new horizon that will come from a new government will remove the shackles on the psychology of this nation and we will rediscover our humanity and speak up for the poor and powerless.

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Can we in Guyana reclaim our humanity in 2015?

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