A most divisive utterance

Dec 03, 2018 Letters

Dear Editor,
I felt this pain before. It was about a year or so ago when a Minister of our Government stood at the podium and mangled the distinction between Diwali and Phagwah. I am in pain again today because a few days ago another Minister of our Government suggested that certain jobs will only be given to members of her party.
While it is patently obvious that Guyana is a multi-ethnic/racial paradise, these lapses do not foster the unity that all Guyanese hunger for. The Minister’s statement might be excusable if in some utopian way her party’s membership represented all ethnic groups equally. But sadly, it doesn’t, and that’s why it hurts.
I, like every other sensible Guyanese, long for leadership that understands that we are one people and we need to hang together if we are to move forward, survive and prosper. We know that politics places some people in situations that cause, force and sometimes, quite frankly, deceive them into making stupid statements.
But in our unique situation in Guyana, people in political leadership positions have a duty and responsibility to be a lot more astute. I say survive because it is a harsh reality that globalization is upon us and the forces that it brings to bear on all countries, including the power and ruthlessness of multi-nationals, will have a devastating impact on our beautiful Guyana unless we stand as one—the only way to cushion that impact.
Here in Guyana, we have always lived our own unique Guyanese lifestyle where our relatives, our best friends and neighbours, our class and work-mates, everybody we know is different from us in some way, either racially, religiously, ethnically or ideologically. But we have always fallen in love with each other, ate, drank and danced with each other and generally celebrated our rich diversity for as far back as any of us could remember. Why should that wonderful experience become victim to thoughtless racial or other form of divisive intrusion at this crucial point in our history?
This invaluable Guyanese Culture that our fore parents cultivated and that our parents have nurtured and sustained, that we have grown to know, enjoy and celebrate and that the rest of the world is now beginning to taste and embrace, must be encouraged to stay together and not be provoked to be divided by reckless utterances from those who we ask to lead us.
Let’s hope that this carelessness ends now and a more focused type of leadership emerges.
Name Withheld

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