An Election Reflection on the Human Spirit

Mar 15, 2015 Countryman, Features / Columnists, News

Countryman – Stories about life, in and out of Guyana, from a Guyanese perspective

By Dennis Nichols
In 1953, like other Guyanese born that year, I was delivered into a world of political chaos. Paranoia

Dennis Nichols

stirred the colonial government of British Guiana. Then, like now, it was an election year. The Brits were suspicious of what was perceived as communist leanings after Cheddi Jagan became prime minister. Governor Savage suspended our months-old constitution. I suspect some commonsense was also suspended, triggered by fear of change and overturn of the status quo.
Now, according to my Christian teaching, I was also born into iniquity, having been conceived in sin (In the headmaster’s house at Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara!) Christianity teaches that my/our sinful nature is at odds with God’s perfect righteousness, and life on Earth is, among other things, a kind of preparation to be spiritually reunited with Him after a physical death. Throughout this birth-to-death journey, stuff happens, including general elections.
As far as I am aware other major religions embrace similar teachings, whereby our ultimate goal is to reach that level of spirituality which releases us from the material world. The more philosophically inclined ponder the deeper mysteries of existence, but some have little time for such profound thought. They have to survive. They have to figure out relationships. They have to fight sickness and forestall death. And they have to vote.

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Some survive through deceit, manipulating the weaknesses and naïveté of those who are thought to be ‘good’ but who live in their own world of impracticality, yearning for a release that comes only with death. When these groups clash, the schemers almost always triumph, or appear to. This human interplay surfaces and dips and resurfaces; in Guyana it can flare red hot during elections season.
Between 1953 and now, a dozen general elections have been held in this country. Some things changed, but the more they did, the more they remained the same. (Alphonse Karr’s paradox) Confusion continued to fester, and change continued to generate apprehension. We winked at communism, flirted with socialism, and embraced capitalism, sort of.
At election time, the so-called racial divide widened, and violence threatened. Then the winners tried to govern, and the opposition tried to keep them in check. Obviously this happens not only in Guyana. Around the world, electioneering, fear, and change, walk hand-in-hand.
For ‘ordinary’ people, apolitical citizens, or those concerned more with survival than stateship, election time in Guyana can be an anxiety-riddled juncture, sandwiched within a broader spectrum of generalized disinterest and disharmony.
Some, although dissatisfied with how the country is managed, just do not have enough energy, or insight into politics, to truly care about who wins or loses an election, or the inter-party wrangling, or the ramifications of a particular outcome. ‘Life’ overwhelms, and they simply hope good sense prevails.
Let’s assume now that the majority of us, Guyanese, including politicians, see ourselves as good people, and have some religious belief that upholds good over evil. Assume further that we want peace, progress and harmony, and we take our national motto seriously. In fact, let’s assume that people everywhere, in the majority, think and feel this way. Most say they do. Then why do we live in societies where we suffer so much political, social, economic, and spiritual disintegration?
Obviously these are questions that one cannot begin to answer in any comprehensive manner in an article like this; in fact there may be no true answer, only thoughts and theories; a heap of ifs, buts and maybes. And in such a scenario, a layman’s response may be as valid as any expert’s. Why not? If all of the professional men and women, all the good people, all the thinkers, researchers and planners, the executors, and the governments cannot effectively manage or assuage our social ills, then who?
The Christian Bible has some intriguing and radical notions about human origins, existence, behaviour, laws, and government, some of which sail over my head. But of that which I comprehend, I am amazed at what it says about these ideas, and how little of it even the most ‘religious’ of us seem to take seriously. Here is a bit of what I mean.
According to what I have read and understood, and what most Christian pastors and teachers I have spoken with tell me, the ‘Good Book’ says we should believe in God, believe in His word, receive Jesus as our saviour, and his atoning blood as our salvation, and by God’s grace, live a life of love and righteousness after having been born anew in the spirit. Some Christians include doing ‘Good Works’ to guarantee salvation. Do these, they say, individually and collectively, and our lives, our nation will be transformed.
What about non-Christians? It is generally accepted that other Holy books like the Talmud, the Quran and the Bhagavad-Gita embrace similar truths about the notions of good and evil, and the ultimate triumph of the former over the latter. It is said that all major religions teach versions of something called the Ethics of Reciprocity, known to Christians as the Golden Rule, namely, treating others as you wish to be treated by them.
So, if all of the Guyanese who profess to live by the tenets of their faith really do so, and practice what they preach, then we, and our country, should be in much better shape. It’s funny, because in all likelihood most Guyanese, including politicians, would claim that they are (a) basically good persons, (b) love Guyana, and (c) are doing their best to secure a better life for themselves and each other. So, who is lying?
Practicing the ethics of reciprocity and upholding the principles to which one subscribes is not easy. We are human. Greed and self-preservation are our legacy. Psychologist Sigmund Freud would have explained how our personality’s demanding id and ego tend to push aside the moralistic superego when their interests clash. Without the superego, he implies, human behaviour would revert to mostly selfish, instinct-driven, aggressive expression. Is that what is being displayed now?
During the tumultuous, racially-hostile period of the early 1960s, an Afro-Guyanese cousin of mine was saved from possible death by the courageous action of an East Indian woman and her family who hid him from a marauding gang of would-be killers on the Mahaicony River. That woman may have been terrified, but she did what had to be done to save the life of an innocent man.
Nearly 40 years later I prevented a group of aggressive young men in Fourth Street, Alberttown, from assaulting an East Indian youth I was teaching to drive, just before the 2001 general elections. They had been playing football on the street and he had parked my car too close to where they were. They did not see me at first, and had actually pushed the boy against the car before I intervened. They threatened me too, and though I was scared, I stood my ground, and we walked away unscathed.
The human spirit is an immaterial thing. It is an energy that transcends physical limitations and cannot be destroyed. Elections in Guyana will come and go. Leaders, governments, ideologies, laws, and society itself, will change. The spirit goes on.
As we draw closer to May 11th, I will weigh my options and my actions practically and cautiously before I enter the voting booth. What happens after that may mean less to me than the fact that my conscience overrode my ego when I placed that X on the spot.