Seven weeks in the distance: We allow madness to overpower our sanity

Apr 19, 2020 Features / Columnists, Hinds' Sight with Dr. David Hinds

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Today, I stay away from analysis and history. I speak today in tongues as they say in the African Spiritualist tradition. I speak without a script in the tradition of my ancestors. I let my memory roll back to where it all began for me on the shores of Africa and through the sordid middle passage. Thence to a little, humble home among a village of humble people—still humble.
It was from there that I learned of there and about the world of which it was a part. It was there that I saw and learned of possibilities for change in the journey to freedom. It was there that I learned to be independent—never to be a yes-man. It was there I learned to hold tightly to my No in the face of cowardly pressure. The Black Stalin in one of his epic calypsos says, “Ah live in a yes-man society, where all the No-men become the enemy.”
I hold tightly to the enemy status. I never knew then that one day, I would get a chance to speak with a voice louder than mine. But here I am, not bound and gagged by the false hope of the now. These past seven weeks I have seen my country teeter on the brink—the brink of a strange but familiar place. And here I am trying to make sense of it.
Some days it seems surreal. Other days it is as plain as a bright sunny day with no frills and pretensions—we just “deh.” I think of the Caribbean civilization of which Guyana is integral. In one of his poems of resistance, Martin Carter speaks about the days “in the distance”
The seventh week has passed since Guyanese voted at the country’s latest election—seven weeks in the distance. There is no officially declared winner although some Guyanese, backed by half the electorate, have pronounced on the outcome.
For these Guyanese, there is no dispute over the election—one contestant has won. Let’s do the victory lap and get down to the business of governing. For the last seven weeks we have seen how fragile our national pact is; we have really been functioning as two separate countries
What does this have to do with me? I have no pedigree. I come from the nigger yard of yesterday, to again borrow from Martin Carter. But I have a voice—a voice born in the particular chaos of post-plantationhood. So, I raise it in defiance of correctness and predictability. I stated my position after the first week.
Where others saw “victory,” I saw trouble. While others fixed their gaze on March 4, I looked beyond to March 6. What I saw on March 6 told me all I wanted to know about where we were headed. Where others saw an open and close election, I saw a disputed election with consequences far beyond the ballot box. Where others wanted to save “democracy”, I wanted to save Guyana—from itself.
From that point, my mind has been fixated on how we can avoid the trouble.
Yes, I dared to suggest that we forego the “victory and defeat” outcome and embrace a solution that allows the country to step back from the brink and soberly contemplate its future—with intentionality.
At one level, I think the country heard me. But at another level, they didn’t want to hear me, especially the side that has already declared victory. There is a vocal, political madness that has consumed half the electorate, and my sense is that while the other side is less vocal, the political insanity is simmering in the background—just out of reach of the other side.
In the beginning, those for whom I was fair-minded once I was critical of the Coalition now yelled for me to speak up on the elections’ impasse. I took my time and when I spoke, they did not like what I said; I did not say what they wanted me to say. I did not repeat the narrative of either side. I did not speak of rigging and democracy. I did not declare a winner. I said No, I will not be drawn into the street fight. I choose not to live for today only, but for tomorrow and the next day and the next day.
I have no regrets. They can drown my voice with the sound of fury. They can extract words from my phrases and sentences and spin their web of doubt and hate. Yet I will not bow.
To quote Martin Carter again and again—”No I will not still my voice/I have too much to claim.” I never dance to anybody’s drumbeat if it’s one that shatters hope and celebrates hopelessness. I learned that on that former plantation. I go back to that space of truth that was humanized by the sacrifices and imaginations of those who looked further than the chains that bound them in captivity.
I stop with this. As we are tugged by the waters which flow from the breach of March 2, we have only ourselves to blame if and when we “meet we meter.” We have choices which saner instincts could embrace. But we allow madness to overpower our sanity. And forward we go. We shall see.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)
More of Dr. Hinds’ writings and commentaries can be found on his YouTube Channel Hinds’ Sight: Dr. David Hinds’ Guyana-Caribbean Politics and on his website www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.news. Send comments to [email protected]

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