Is there anything that we can do for ourselves anymore?

Oct 05, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
I would like to use some choicer expressions but manage myself. There is the new ‘Iron Lady’ of Guyana, no less a person than the American Ambassador to Guyana Her Excellency, Sarah Ann Lynch, weighing in to offer civil society help with inclusive governance. I am reduced to incredulity and the questions come.
Is there anything about our own affairs that we can do by ourselves anymore? Nothing without having the world, especially the Americans, holding our hands, wiping our noses, and cleaning our bottoms? Indeed, do Americans have to be summoned to run to the rescue and help Guyanese leaders and cognoscenti, who boast of 20/20 vision cross streets, which have no traffic? Are we that limited? That domestically abused and battered and lacking in shame? What happened to our pride and dignity?
We needed comprehensive help with elections. Though I said that we opened the door too wide and the foreigners ventured too far inside, that is done and gone. But since those elections, the American presence and influence has gone from strength to strength, and today both are no longer out of sight or camouflaged. I am already at that place, which hears American and its agents saying, “you owe us, pay the price, this is the first installment.”
A quick examination of the time since the elections temporarily expired confirms the following. America controls Guyana relative to Venezuela. America has set its eyes on the commercial and contractual Chinese presence here, does not like what it sees, and moves to minimize. As an aside, I laud the Hon. Prime Minister, Mr. Mark Philips, in seeking to reassure the Chinese of their staying power and value. It was an unconvincing one, which tells me that he should have stayed in the army.
Moving along, the Americans through Exxon controls our oil, its returns, and I must say who gets how much. Those who care about such things should look closer at some of the secretive oil deals involving two oil blocks that started out with mysterious middlemen but ended up with significant percentage shares owned by ExxonMobil. Yes! There are these magic moments in Guyana, but the multitude of jilted Guyanese poor languish in blissful ignorance. What is that one again? About the wife always being the last one to know?
Then, it was the private sector’s turn for prepping for infiltration and invasion, which was made clear through the mechanism of the equivalent of friendship groups, fraternal organizations, and Chambers of Commerce agencies. The fellows from that other agency in Langley must be celebrating like pigs in, (in the interests of politeness), mud. The pending dominance is endless, so I continue. American aviation powers are soon going to knock out Caribbean Airlines and dominate the welcoming Guyana skies.
As said before, I am a capitalist at heart and an American in vision and spirit, so my preference is to do business with the lesser of other evils (there we go again). And though I like some of what I read, I ask quietly and seriously: how much is too much? Now I read, compliments of the ubiquitous and increasingly loquacious American Chief Minister to Guyana (of pure, noble, and honourable objectives, certainly) waxing about assistance for helping civil society to contribute meaningfully to inclusive governance and I am shocked.
A new round of questions rushes to the fore. Surely, Guyanese, despite limitations, do not need anybody, including Americans, to enlighten them on what must be done to get in a room and have a conversation? Do we need anyone to teach us about honesty and integrity? I don’t. Surely, Guyanese civic and political players have enough sense to appreciate that when we are divided and at constant loggerheads, that such redounds to the benefit of Exxon and, by extension, America? I can ponder the role of America as honest broker, but no more.
But as I think of this one about working with civil society for inclusive governance, I wonder whether this is not another snare to lure unsuspecting civil society into the limelight and primetime, so that it feels good about itself. I wrote this somewhere: when the elites are wooed and bought over, then what remains is for the poor slobs in the streets to brutalize one another. As I see it, we are going in that direction.
Like I keep saying, Guyana may already be the 51st state but it is too ashamed to make it official. God bless America! Good luck Guyana!
Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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