It’s all about the election date

Mar 06, 2019 Editorial

The things that obsess the leaders of this country are revealing. Currently, the life-and-death issue is all about a nonnegotiable date for elections. It just cannot be any date; it had better be an acceptable one, and one that is rapidly forthcoming.
Any constructive citizen would subscribe to the position that a date is of importance. Yet in view of the harsh rush of events, and the unalterable paramountcy of personal and political interests, this fixation with a date furnishes evidence of how lost, dismal, and troublingly self-serving are politicians in this country.
At bottom, this stridency and obsession on a date, at the expense of all else, is about power; about the opportunity to trample upon (again); and about the keys to the Treasury (again). It is also about the flood of evils held in abeyance and threatening to endanger (again).
Listen intently; notice carefully; and something startling becomes obvious, painfully so: other than the shrill, insistent quest for a date, there is nothing else. There is nothing about what is most relevant and vital to this society; nothing about healing and possibly knitting together against the tide, against all the odds and barriers, in an all-out effort to unify.
No! All out efforts are furiously concentrated on and powered by a date demanded, a date finalized. It is illuminating that self-absorbed and self-centered political leaders, groups, and forces do not spare a single moment to construct and couch their language and determination about a date in the more wholesome terms of what matters.
They do not spare even spurious ones that emphasize a vision and thrust pervaded by the unifying. Never articulated and never heard is anything along the same urgency, indeed immediacy, attached to a date about the imperative of the elections being an opportunity and channel for mending, reconciling, and unifying.
Amidst all the loud blasts and foci on date, no one is saying that I (whomsoever that may be) dedicate myself to making this the uppermost priority and hard reality. Or, at least, I personally commit to making such a start, as difficult as that is going to be for the mere thinking and attempting.
Having deceived so much on other matters, what is one more deception? Instead, there are the patented unrealities, or great exaggerations, about tens of thousands of jobs; about observance of democratic norms; and about clean governance. Where? In which village, sector, or region? And under whose watch? By whose horribly tainted hands?
Nevertheless, a date it has to be, and now. Citizens hear and understand that. Meantime, there should be sifting as to either the so-called positives embedded, or the worst possibilities that may be imagined. The moment is seized first to ponder and then to ask: for what long-term purpose?
To what unfolding on the ground is the bitter aftermath promised? From every appearance and sentiment, it can only be more of the same of before, but at a higher intensity: the cacophony of hostile spirits; the pervasive antagonisms of both the successful and the thwarted; and the unyielding, warring segments groomed, aroused, and reinvigorated. Again!
Since it is a date; then let it be. Those are the lean and hungry fanaticisms that conspire and drool over the prize of political ascendancy and political power, and which soars in this society.
For Guyana and torn, paralyzed Guyanese, they are no less dangerous. For political power in this country translates to racial power of one over the other.
For once, genuine leaders in this country have an opportunity to separate from the pack, and distinguish themselves through advocating and exemplifying what is best for all Guyanese.

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