You want to share my cake?

Dec 29, 2019 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

There is a lot of cake around at Christmas time. Cakes are part of the traditional staple in the homes of Guyanese. It is hard to imagine a Guyanese home without Christmas cakes.
It has always been so. It would have been quite unusual to go to someone’s home and not receive a piece of cake during the festive season. The person whom you visited would always, back then and even in the difficult times, offer you a piece of sponge or fruit cake.
If you visited six homes, you could be sure that you would be offered at least 12 pieces of home-made cake. It led to something called ‘cake belly’ which forced you to go to the parks to exercise after the holidays.
One man got to be so fed up at one time that when he came to my home. Before I could have offered him a piece of black cake, he asked me whether I had any “channa”. Fortunately I did – yes, there was time in Guyana when so many items were prohibited or restricted that “channa” became a Christmas delicacy. I have often wondered what I would have done if he had asked for an egg ball.
Not sure what happens these days, but back in those days you could not walk in to a man’s kitchen, pick up his knife, and help yourself to his cake. You had to wait until you were offered.
A guest at your home, or your wedding or your child’s birthday party could not take it upon himself or herself to decide how your cake was going to be distributed. A person may help cut the cake, but when it comes to the distribution of the cake, that was the prerogative of the host. No stranger could walk off the road and share your cake in your home, at your wedding or at your child’s birthday.
Your cake is your cake. You are not going to allow somebody to decide what you are going to do with your cake. Would you allow someone to share your cake without your consent?
Some persons are inseparable from their cakes. Over the Christmas holidays, one man got so drunk that he took up a piece of cake from his plate, looked at it lovingly and said to it, “No matter what happens, I will not dessert you.”
Men and women have to protect their cake. It is their right to decide on who gets a piece of their cake.
The situation with a country’s natural resource wealth is no different. Investors may come to partake of that wealth through their investments. But they should not be the ones who should decide how the national cake is to be split. That is for the country and its people to decide.
We have an unusual situation in Guyana in the oil and gas industry. Guyana’s oil wealth belongs to the people. Guyana invited investors to come here to help develop this industry. But it seems as if that invitation has been interpreted as allowing those invitees the right to dictate the division of the ‘national cake.’
Guyana faces an unusual situation with its ‘oil’ cake. It is the guests (the oil companies) who are deciding on the division of the national cake. They are the ones who are sharing Guyana’s cake and informing Guyanese that 2% of that cake will be given to them.
The people are tumbling over each other about how to share this thin 2% slice. forgetting that it is their right to decide on the size of the slice. Some want conditional cash transfers, others want non-conditional cash transfers. Even more others want for the parts of this thin slice to be allocated to them more than to others.
Guyanese are fighting over the cake even before it is baked. And they are not worried that they are not the ones sharing their own cake. The oil companies are sharing out the cake. And on top of that when they are finished, they are sending you a bill.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

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You want to share my cake?

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