First Oil

Dec 23, 2019 Editorial

First oil! Guyana should congratulate itself. We have joined an elite club of oil producing nations, and first oil should, maybe even just could, lead to many firsts for this strapped, stricken, sick society of people, its extended plurality of peoples.
Forget about Nigeria and Iraq; yet even as we forgot them, their many harsh, internecine lessons should remain to remind of the insanity that could reign here. For if we continue in the same unheeding and unlearning political and racial ways, first oil will not matter. For then we will certainly be first in the continuing foolishness, backwardness, and ugliness that have made all of Guyana their home.
The market price of oil would not matter, nor the price paid to ExxonMobil and the rest of foreign drillers, producers, and shippers. All of those are irrelevant, since what should matter is that we could be fastened inextricably, as is usual, in the same paralyzing places that have left us short of breath, short of money, and short of sanity.
First oil should be heralded with all the dignified, but subdued, fanfare that could be mustered. But first oil should and must pave the way forward to the first inklings of good sense, of what is firstly practical, and of what is firstly beneficial for this land.
It is going to demand to the extreme degree that we-political leaders, regular citizens- summon the courage and willingness to confront and conquer our demons. We know what they are, and they will not be recounted here, as they have been regurgitated ad nauseum.
Time to appreciate that with that oil, all of the things that we have feared are now possible. Yet, all the things that we have dreamed about and hoped for, are also within reach, as in the palm of the hands, if given the opportunity to stir and grow and flourish.
Do we have what it takes to manifest the first semblances of first sanity now that we have first oil? Or is the now irreversible fact that we have joined the exclusive petroleum group going to rush us and hurl us to the impasse of our own nuclear club? Time will tell if our leaders will be the first exemplars of what is needed, and must be? That same old man time will provide testimony as to whether we will be at each other’s throats, or at each other’s sides, which could be the unlikeliest of firsts for the citizens of this country?
It had better be at each other’s sides with the best of intentions, or that same long-awaited, now mutedly celebrated first oil could be the last of what is left of us as a group of peoples, as a political agency, even a geographical reality. Our very own neighbours in South America are currently reaping the whirlwinds sowed by this leader and that group over the years and decades. The blame can go on for as long as they please, but the unmoving bottom line is that the oil has not proved to be a blessing, but the worst of curses.
And as if that harrowing example is not enough, then another from nearby should also ram home the point as to how far the oil makes societies fall. The second example resides in the Caribbean Sea. After decades of producing, refining and exporting, it is a land wracked with tears and one economic woe after another. What happened to the bonanza? All the money? The rainy day contingency fund? The wise political heads and civil society and the whole kit and kaboodle of experts and advisers and knowledge people?
At this momentous hour, almost all Guyanese are first scholars in the pros and cons of first oil, and all the rest that is there to be known and expounded about oil. The question is this: with all this knowing, have we learned anything? And: what has to be delivered by each one of us? In other words, the sacrifices that have to be made, the sharing that must happen, so that the rewards that are embedded in that blessing just may flow. So that it could actually turn out to be a boon and not a brutality that leaves us barren of spirit and breath.
It can be only those two, since all else would be gone by the time we come to our senses. The longer we take politically, racially, and ethically, the less is promised to be left to quarrel over and fight over. For all of these reasons, it is why this publication urges that first oil had better usher in the first smatterings of first sense in the areas that matter. If not, then first oil could lead to the ultimate tragedy of last man standing, or none at all.

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