Politics and protests

Jan 09, 2020 Editorial

Overreaction? Too much sensitivity? Arranging a storm in a teacup? Or, reduced to its simplest terms: gotcha! Yes, it is about religion and constitution and separation of state from the spiritual. Both have their own weight to be bothered about, rather than to have to assume that of the other.
Indeed, it is all of that, if not more, and none should argue in this matter of the spiritual effort/prayer by the Ministry of Public Health people that took on a surprising life of its own. But there is such a thing as the underlying intentions, as well as what is the harm done and, moreover, what is expected to be gained from challenging?
The first thought was that there was not much in that MoPH prayer to make a capital case for impropriety, for wicked objectives, and for who knows what else that is imagined in this political season.
It is no longer merely a silly season, but hunting season, filtering season, purifying season, with no stone left unturned, as to what could be uncovered, and where it may lead.
Let’s proceed cautiously, observe closely, and weigh wisely, are some of the guidelines which should find favour, since they make for so much commonsense. Why imagine slights, the worse of objectives, and ulterior motives, when they may not even have been contemplated.
Dare we, at this paper, say that word, which is sure to outrage? We will try it. The word is innocence. In other words, not everything should be interpreted as angled for unfair advantage, or is intended to diminish, or have in mind to bring about secondary status.
Clearly, this society is strung as taut as a bowstring, with no give, no room for error, not even human discretion. In effect, this signifies that the space required for necessary accommodations has been sucked out of both atmosphere and environment, while leaving us sorrier for what now prevails and is anticipated to intensify.
In view of being imprisoned in a dark place from where we stand poised to spring at the merest stirring, then what is promised in the days ahead? What could follow, but the inevitable social decline that haunts?
Today any wink could be searched for diligently and when found blown out of proportion-deliberately or naively or innocently-there is bound to be fallout. People are too tense, too judgmental, too insistent upon the unreal, if not the inhuman.
Let us remember what this is all about: it is about something called elections. And though the succeeding sentence should emphasize that it is not life and death, or should not rise to that level, truth be told, elections in Guyana are about life and death for too many.
They live for this, they have nothing else, they may not even desire for matters to be otherwise, so far are they gone down the political road that consumes and traps and devastates. We need to rebalance and measure ourselves not through what is imagined, but what is helpful and constructive to get to another place.
As always, there are two questions that are relevant, and powerfully so: do we as individuals and as a collective polity genuinely desire to move from where we are, with all of its ills and negatives? Or do we like the gutter and failures so much that we cannot begin to dream of extricating ourselves from either?
No document, no program, no government is able to do this for WE, THE PEOPLE. We have to want this betterment for ourselves and the future of our families, extending all the way to the national family. If we do not will ourselves to higher ground, then it will always be the finger-pointing, the reciprocal accusations, the endless recriminations.
If a prayer can reduce to this, then there is not much hope for us. Better judgment must prevail.

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