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Investiture is only for the moment

Oct 08, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The mouthpieces of the APNU+AFC have very little to cheer about when it comes to the performance of their government. As such, they have to get excited about the intangibles such as ceremonial titles and awards.
The mouthpieces are now trumpeting the fact that national awards are now an annual happening, in stark contrast with what occurred under the PPPC when awards were not held for an extend period of time, a development which was painted as being inconsiderate on the part of the former administration.
The return of national awards, however, is nothing to celebrate. In fact, the awards are being devalued not by the irregularity in their distribution but because of the sheer volume of persons who are now receiving awards each year.
The law of supply and demand states that as quantity increases, the price of good declines. The converse is true: as quantity decreases, the price (value) increases.
In the case of national awards, if there are too many recipients, relative to the population, the awards become too common and are cheapened.
In 2015, fifty-four persons were given national awards; in 2016, 86 awards were made, in 2017, 69 persons were honoured; and this year a total of 93 awards were handed out. At this rate, within thirty years, there can be as many as 3000 living recipients.
The PPPC understood what was likely to happen if each year they distributed awards.
After a time, they will be difficulties in finding deserving recipients without cheapening the awards. It makes no sense, either, giving out twenty awards a year. It is best to wait five years and give out a hundred.
This may not have been the PPPCs thinking they may have been opposed to the awards of ideological grounds but there are downside risks to too many awardees in a small society.
Not only are too many awards given out but too many of the awardees are controversial. This was the same under the PPPC where it was pointed out that some persons received higher awards than other more deserving awardees.
The honours system is British inheritance. National awards are part of the imperialist practice of establishing and sustaining class-based and class-differentiated societies.
It is part of the obsession with rank and class, which is a feature of imperial and colonial societies.  It is way of letting people know who represent the crème of society and who represent the base. It has always been about differentiation.
Burnhams retention of national awards after independence was part of the culture of imitation, which still resides in post-colonial societies. Burnham merely changed the names and the titles and, as in Britain, there was some amount of democratization with some awards being handed out to the “small man”.
But you can bet your bottom dollar that the small man will be confined to the lower rungs of the honours hierarchy. Which working class Guyanese have ever received the Order of Excellence or the Order of Roraima? Their places are lower down the ladder.
In Guyana, the national awards system has been criticized as being used to reward the party faithful and friends. This was one of the strongest criticisms made in 2015 when a number of persons linked to the PNCR were given awards.  The same criticisms were made under the PPPC.
National awards are an anachronism.  They do nothing for anybody, except to add to the length of the suffixes behind your name. The awards do not affect the size of your take-home pay. They do not bring any additional benefit nor grant ant greater respect from within society, unlike in other jurisdictions where, for example, knighthood has its benefits.
A national award is not going to get you invited to any place where you were not invited before. And if perchance, a recipient should be a victim of a random traffic police stop, do not dare believe that your national medal will buy you in any favours.
The benefits of investiture lasts only a few seconds. You get a deluge of congratulations and back-patting but when that is over, it is over. The glory lasts only for the moment.

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