The dream threatens to die a premature death

Mar 26, 2020 Editorial

The dream threatens to die a premature death. It is a testimony to the follies of political leaders lost in the addictions of their selfish ambitions for their visions of exclusive control of a country, and its wealth, which is now under a convergence of crises that menace its existence as a polity of any kind.
Warring peoples, fanatical supporters all, share the self-serving ambitions and visions of their masters and, thus, the dream long held, recently subjected to sickening jolts looks dimmer and dimmer, as it falters before what encroaches and enfeebles.
This is the current outlook of no less a global authority than Bloomberg, as carried in an article titled, “Bloomberg paints gloomy economic picture of Guyana – says country’s future as world’s fastest-growing economy dims” (KN March 25).
How far we have fallen, this state in which Guyana finds itself! This sorry and savaging state that conveys to a universe of disbelieving onlookers as to how sick we are to the bone, maybe even the depths of our darkened souls.
We are faced with not one overhanging plague, but the high probability of three of them. First, there is an elections conclusion waited upon in vain: starts and stops, failure and finger-pointing, and the wounding acrimonies that leave us unable to think on our feet any longer.
We muddle along, tumble headlong forward, in the desperate hope of a soft landing, a safe one. The problem is, whichever way these elections results conclude, no such softness or safety is assured. That is as good as guaranteed. For neither of the contesting groups, none of their leadership classes, are so much as contemplating anything but winning and ascending, and going it alone from thereon forward.
In such concretized sentiments and unflappable positions, there is only the steepest, slipperiest, and most treacherous of misjudgments and miscalculations. Greater men and more endowed places have fallen down and fallen apart from the self-destructive futility of their follies.
We should not attempt any such thing here, but we are bent on so doing, in spite of the gravest of misgivings that hover and encircle. We say: do not go down roads that will come back to haunt and condemn the rest of us and our prospects downward.
Those same elections and their controversies have been endless and have raised the hackles and ire of those looking on from abroad. The cautions and blunter condemnations have been consistent and, on occasion, the delicate protocols of diplomatic speak have been pushed to the edges.
It is an indication of the tricky state in which Guyana currently functions, where one misstep, a single misplacing of confidence, could lead to a rushing downward spiral. This is said because that deboning and disemboweling word “sanctions” keeps being uttered, and is slowly intensified in a relentless drumbeat that, at bottom, imparts: get this thing right! Don’t do it wrong. Don’t muddy further the Guyanese electoral waters. And to sum all of this up: Don’t put self in a position where swords are crossed with us. There could only be one loser, and that is Guyana and its sure-to-suffer peoples.
It would have been bad enough if those were all that this country faced. But all the way from the distance comes an apocalypse of fear, death, and developmental destructiveness. COVID-19 is the name by which it reigns over an alarmed and shrinking world. Our local world has shrunk, but nowhere to the extent that is required. There is too much distraction (elections), too much disregard (individual and societal casualness), too much uncertainty (official unreadiness, despite assurances to the contrary), for our attentions and urgencies are not where they should be uppermost and always constantly. That raging virago of a virus is going to cut a wide swath and it knows no friends, spares none foolish enough to stand in resistance against its unchecked prowling.
And in the final enveloping piling on, this perfect storm that comes brings the news of flatlining oil prices. The bottom is so close as to trigger the chills. What are we fighting for so senselessly? The dream wilts and wanes. Still, we wrestle and wrench each other deeper into the grave dug.

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