Guyana at 50: dyslexic, dystopian, dysfunctional

May 20, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

In my heart I believe Forbes Burnham had something to do with Walter Rodney’s death. In my heart I know Burnham was driven by power lust. But I deeply concede that Burnham was committed to the removal of the ordained privileges, divine rights and social supremacy of the semi-rich and moneyed classes in Guyana.
From the time Burnham died, every succeeding government pursued policies that were not cognizant of the economic and political rights of the labouring masses and the list includes the Coalition Government of 2015.
I make no apologies. This is not personally directed to any leader in the AFC and ANPU. It is my objective analysis based on my studies on politics and society. I remember I was a teenager during the early years of the Burnham era when a man from the middle class named Claude Vieira, who was the Chief Principal Officer (next to the PS) in the Education Ministry, was charged and jailed for fraud.
That would never happen in Guyana under any post-Burnham administration from 1985 onwards. That would never happen in 2016. I remember when I was a teenager during the Burnham years when a very rich, propertied man from Mahaica, Mustapha Ali, was charged for death by dangerous driving and jailed for five years and the Court of Appeal upheld the High Court decision.
It is virtually impossible to have these convictions in Guyana since the passing of the Forbes Burnham epoch. Which policeman, magistrate, judge, ruling politician would allow persons from the upper classes to suffer such a fate? This is a tenth rate banana republic where money buys justice and it does so openly and barefacedly. I see two Guyanese men of European extraction who ride all over this place (meaning parts of Region 4) without helmets and not a traffic cop dare to stop them. Dale Andrews (of this newspaper) and I went to Ruimveldt police station after we saw the son of one of these men passed the station without a helmet. The ranks told us they don’t know about this guy and/or any guy riding without a helmet. We see the “eyepass” when we are outside Kaieteur News, but the police don’t.
This is Guyana after 50 years of Independence. Here is what we haven’t learnt in those fifty years and perhaps never will. People say rocket science is a complex subject, but street lights technology in Guyana (only in Guyana), is far more formidable. I was coming home on the UG Road on Monday afternoon when I saw the technicians fixing the street lights from the Beharry Residence right up to the Cyril Potter College of Education. On Tuesday night, lights eventually came to that important roadway. On Wednesday night, the lights died. They are still dead as I write. This incredible ancient rite has been going on all over Guyana. The guys fix the lights one day; the next day the lights are gone.
Really, after 50 years of Independence we cannot get street lights to work. It is only natural to ask what have we achieved after 50 years of sovereignty. But it is not only a lack of achievements but also lack of mental thinking that has characterized 50 years of failure. This poor country attempted to spend scarce foreign exchange to bring CPL cricket. We were saved only by the wealth of Trinidad who outbid us. Why would a piss poor country like Guyana think it can compete with wealthy Trinidad? We have a huge cricket stadium just built eight years ago, but we have spent precious millions (even if donated) to build a bigger structure just to celebrate the Golden Jubilee.
After 50 years of Independence, the fire engines roll out of the congested Stabroek Market Square and as the drivers accelerate, pedestrians, women with small children at their side, women with babies in their arms, itinerant hucksters with their goods in huge baskets, have to run like wild animals out of the machines’ pathway to avoid being mashed to pieces. Yet we can use D’Urban Park as a place to build colossal stands instead of putting the fire engines there.
But there is hope. I heard after the bacchanalian, carnivalesque escapades at D’Urban Park are completed, the fire engines will roll out to D’Urban Park and will sit on top of the stands which will be their new home. When there is a fire, they will roll down the stands. One day the stands may collapse. Seventeen prisoners were burnt alive in an overcrowded prison that has long outlived its usefulness. What a stark, tragic reminder of our stagnation over the past fifty years.

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