Outside looking in and inside looking out

Jan 22, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The politicians will tell you that the country’s oil belongs to all Guyanese. But the scenes inside and outside of the Marriott Hotel last Friday were contrasting. The bigwigs of government and the business world, bedecked in their suits and ties, were inside toasting with champagne while outside the ordinary folks, in their jeans and jerseys, were content with the sideshow of fireworks laid on for their benefit.
A few persons, I am told, went out of their way to be present. They begged for an invitation to be inside. They preferred to be inside with the rich and notables rather than on the beach with the ordinary and unknowns.
This is the way of the world. Guyanese are being told to think like billionaires, yet the ordinary man was left outside, while those who will reap the most benefits from developments which will result from oil-driven growth were inside.
The class nature of our society is as such that the bourgeoisie and petite bourgeoisie stand on one side, the inside, and the poor and powerless on the other side, the outside. The situation is symbolic of what is likely to happen with Guyana’s oil wealth.
What has been done to the people’s wealth? Has the kingdom been sold for a horse? Just who is unbothered by having one group inside and another outside of the Marriott last Friday?
Guyana’s oil wealth is likely to soon be gobbled up by the rich and the bureaucratic class. The rich and the connected are going to fill their pockets until these are overflowing. The poor, like the folks outside the Marriott last Friday, who were given their twenty minutes of entertainment, will be thrown a few of the scraps – free education, a road here and a road there, a school here and school there, a hospital here and hospital there, and back pay every Christmas.
The banquet is for those on the inside; the circus will be for those on the outside. One group had their fill of food and drinks; the other was bedazzled by fireworks. So much so that they have not blinked as yet, and are not likely to do so until after the elections.
Not one of the parties, big or small, that are contesting the general elections, have defined themselves ideologically. Only one party which is contesting the regional elections has indicated its ideological opposition to neo-liberal policies. Only one party, a small party with little chance of gaining a seat, has said that it will renegotiate the disgraceful oil contracts.
Thousands of persons are attending political rallies across the country to give a façade of democracy. Not one of them has stood up and asked any of the parties on which side of the ideological divide they stand, the poor or the rich, the left or the right.
These political parties have not been asked but if they are, you can bet that they will have an answer. They will claim that they are for everybody. Every party contesting the general elections will claim they are for everyone.

The same people, who were standing outside of the Marriott while their leaders were inside wining and dining, are going to soon forget their exclusion from that event. They have had their fill of fireworks display, and it is now time to revert back to their respective political camps and dream of oil wealth and the prospects of thinking like billionaires.
Those inside will have the last laugh. They will convince those outside to vote for them so that they can look out for their interests. And those on the outside will swallow the argument, hook, line and sinker, and put their trust on those on the inside.
Such is the way of the world. Those on the outside will remain on the outside; those on the inside will stay inside, looking out cynically and disapprovingly at those who are peering in.

(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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