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Duck you suckers!
People set themselves up for a fall. And that fall can be very hard.
Guyanese are suckers for a story, especially if it is a story that they want to believe. They believe it because they want to believe it, not because they have taken time to consider all the sides of an issue.
People have a tendency in Guyana not to carefully study the situation. They read about someone being investigated. They learn that the person has been charged. They do not like the person for political reasons. They wait expectantly for the legal hammer to drop on the person’s head. When it does not happen, they are disappointed.
They begin to blame people wrongfully. They never blame themselves for being a sucker for a story that was simply too good to be true.
A man was recently freed of a charge by the court. The man, because of the political divide in Guyana is not well-liked by certain sections of the population. He is not well-liked because he is perceived as being supportive of the former government. The man is not even a card-bearing member of the opposition but simply because he had a rapport with the previous administration, he is branded as an opposition supporter.
Those who wanted him to be jailed wanted him to be jailed not because they cared so much that he may have done something wrong but because the hatred of the PPPC has so contaminated their minds that they want him to be punished because in their opinion, he is a PPP.
They have taken no time to question whether in the first place there was a case against the man. They have accepted hook, line and sinker what was peddled to them. People believe things because they want to believe it, not necessarily because they are of the view that the facts support what they believe.
The man is freed and dejection and disappointment is the first reaction. The second reaction is to try to justify the fact that they were right in believing that the man was guilty. If they believe the man was guilty, then something had to have gone wrong for the man to have been found not guilty. It surely cannot be their judgment that is wrong. No, they are right and therefore something went wrong.
And so the excuses begin. Accusations run amok. Others are blamed. Institutions and professionals are brought into disrepute. This is the excuse- making syndrome. People have to find a way to rationalize what has taken place other than admitting that they may have been wrong.
The danger in all of this is not the case in question. It is the risk that it poses for society as a whole. When the new administration came to power, they worked for over seven months with the former Head of the Privatization Unit who was at the helm under the PPPC. They did not send him home or prevent him accessing his office for document. They seemed willing to work with him. They seem impressed with him. In fact, they have not as yet put the Marriott Hotel on the market. They have kept it going and boasting about impressive occupancy. The man was becoming a cult hero. When everyone expected the hotel he established to flop, it was in fact a success story.
The pressure mounted on the government to cut ties. The financiers of the ruling coalition wanted the man out and they eventually got their way.
But some persons decided that they had to do more than get him out. They got carried away by their own illusions and beliefs about the man. They placed his home under surveillance, except that the wrong house was being placed under surveillance. For seven months, the man was not under any cloud of suspicion. But suddenly he has departed his job; his home is placed under watch.
We know what happened. A man and his wife lost their lives because they were sent to do a job that should never have been done in the first place. Somebody had a perception of something and acted blindly on the perception. The result is the loss of three lives and children growing up without parents.
This is the Guyana story. Were it not tragic, it would make for high comedy.
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