Guyana seems to be a haven for the bizarre

Mar 05, 2019 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

Regrettably, Guyana seems to be a haven for some of the most bizarre events ever witnessed.
Those of us who have lived here for our entire life would find such events a regular occurrence as we go about our daily lives.
A most recent case in point was the editorial of the Guyana Chronicle published on Thursday, February 28, 2019 headlined; ‘Putting country first.’
In a sudden, uncharacteristic departure from its usual anti-opposition, pro-government propagandistic vitriol the Chronicle editorial, in a record number of pronouns totaling 19 ‘ours’ and 22 ‘we’s’ made a surreptitious appeal to the nationalist sentiments of its readers.
The highly suspect call that ‘we’ must do this and ‘we’ must do that, along with numerous references to ‘our’ this, and ‘our’ that, was so pathetic that the end result was that editorial must have failed miserably to achieve its objective.
The vagueness as to who the ‘ours’ and ‘we’s’ are was so striking that any fifth form student would be at a loss to recognize who it was that the editorial was really targeting with the aim of influencing them.
The long and short of the ill- fated message in the editorial was that it must have gone completely over the head of the average Guyanese.
In this regard, it is left to wonder whether the editorial’s author is a crew member on the ‘Starship Enterprise’ usually featured in the fictional Star-trek serial.
Another bizarre characteristic of the editorial was its timing.
The editorial was published at a time when the Granger administration has found itself trapped in a game of its own making.
Now, in an attempt to temper the deep concerns, if not anger of Guyanese over the disturbing state of affairs obtaining in our country, the government, through the Chronicle editorial, sought to way-lay readers by appealing to their sense of nationhood at a time when the government is staggering to find its way out an impending constitutional crisis.
Further, what was bizarre about the editorial was this strangely concocted and convoluted diatribe about ‘political disagreements becoming political liabilities’ and Guyanese being ‘trapped by different approaches to national development.’
The editorial engages in ‘word-smithing’ as regards the ‘search for the magic touch of national harmony, but in the same breadth, laments the ‘giving way to disharmony, which in the editor’s view, ‘stands in the way of national development.’
The editorial regrets the number of times ‘we’ have been on the ‘edge of ruin’ but its author avoids any mention about who is responsible for bringing the nation to its so-called ruinous ‘edge.’
The editorial laments that ‘we’ have become so ‘wedded to the politics of unreason ‘ so much so that ‘we’ have become victims of the ‘politics of unreason which has overtime become normative.’
Wow! To this lamentation, the question should be asked; from whence, in today’s context, when the country’s constitution is being violated, has unreasonableness become normative?
‘And as though to add insult to injury, we are told, ‘there must be a way out of this vicious cycle of aggression and victim hood.’ Yet another combination of suggestion and condemnation that points the ‘we’s’ and the ‘us’s to seek first the kingdom of ‘nationhood’ as the only means for survival.
Then comes the bizarre suggestion that somewhere out there exists a ‘zone of satisfaction’ like Lemuria is not only lost, but like a utopia, is where ‘most of our leaders flattered to deceive’ those who fell prey to the practitioners of flattery and deception.
In the final analysis, however, one is tempted to concede that notwithstanding the editorial’s ‘word-smithing’, at the end of the day, it is a litany of mere sophistry.
And when the editorial suggests there is a shortage in supply of ‘the essence of civic engagement’ isn’t this is implicitly, a somewhat elitist approach to what should be the customary, hospitable Guyanese approach?
The Chronicle editorial ends with a call for ‘widening the dialogue away from political competition’ and further, that ‘this is not the time to be torn apart by the politics of expediency- it’s still nation time’ the editorial cries!
Incredible! Though the politically conscious Guyanese would be aware of the current political impasse arising from government’s intransigent and cunctatorian practices would therefore be lost for words were they to attempt an understanding of the Chronicle editorial’s jiggerypoggekry fashioned in a call that ‘it’s still nation time.’

Your faithfully,
Clement J. Rohee

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