Merry Christmas to all!

Dec 25, 2019 Editorial

Joy to the world. This is the soul of today’s celebration of Christmas Day globally. That is the promise held aloft before all men and women on what is now recognised here as the all-Guyanese holiday. It is one that largely cuts across religion, race, and culture, and that which is embraced universally.
Joy to the world it can be for Guyana, which has now become a world-famous place of interest and preferred destination. There can be joy for all citizens, but only if… The but is big, and the if is infinitely bigger.
First oil was the long-awaited yesterday. The onus is now upon us to determine how we will react and what we will do to extract the best from our blessing. To extract the best from the beginning, not down the line, when it is too late; best for the most, not the few, which only resets our table for more acrimonies and discontents that have laid us low so long.
There can be that special joy that comes from knowing and living that – against odds, despite history – we looked deep inside, and greed and hatred did not prevail for once. But that somehow, we did discover that we can be different – without our diversities interfering with the positive attributes that we citizens bring to the table of our banquet.
We can share across-the-board, which includes those who languish outside in our hardscrabble streets. This is not some unreachable utopia. It is merely the practicality that, if we stand on tiptoe and crane our necks to recognise the others positively, then we shall see them in the splendour of their presences, whether those who were always here, those who came in whatever order, and those who were previously regarded as enemies and competitors only.
For if we see the latter only, and a smaller pie constantly, then like all the wretched oil societies of this troubled earth, we will end up with the localised disasters that, in aggregate, make for an enduring national tragedy. For there will only be the unending quarrels to make things right, to balance the scales towards the equitable. For where there are riches, there are men, and where the latter is present, there is covetousness and all the woes that follow.
Can we manage ourselves better? Do we really want to, at the centre of our souls? Then like the grand Christmas story, there must be the willingness to make the sacrifices that are necessary to partake of the prosperities envisioned.
Christmas is about the birth of the promise. There is a life to be lived, through a certain course followed, with sacrifices along the road to make things possible. It was made at great expense, and now the promise is closer and greater, we must do our part.
First oil was the promise given birth. That is gone, and Guyanese must now adhere to a pathway that is of certain key characteristics: there is the start of recognising neighbour as neither pariah nor outsider. There is that vital next step, which had eluded us for so long, when we were poorer: poorer in spirit, poorer in the material things out of reach. This mandatory next step is of including neighbour. And the last step is that of sharing the oil wealth before all in the fold and none left out.
It does not matter which group, or which leader, is in charge. Because if they do wrong, then all of this – the oil, the promised prosperity, the cascading trickledown effects – will matter not. For then we would have started on the wrong foot with the most perverse objectives in mind: seize for self only. All would be lost, none could win. There is no other result, and we would go the sorry way of other failed societies, and of which we do know much.
Unless it is this way advocated by this publication, it is downhill. If the positions of this paper are found favour with, and practiced, then there can be peace and goodwill to all men and women in Guyana, not only this Christmas, but in the ones to come.
To our fellow citizens: Merry Christmas. Joy to the world, and peace and goodwill.

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Merry Christmas to all!

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