Fear stalks a supposedly democratic land

Oct 13, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

Kaieteur News – I recently attended a tiny church gathering. Among the less than 10 attendees were a few who knew me, though I didn’t know them, never met them. Their situations and stories, as shared, are becoming all too normal, all too alarmingly familiar, in this troubled, so-called democratic society.
The people sharing work for the state in jobs that are entry level or slightly above midlevel would be a stretch. In the House of God, quiet unsolicited conversations with these strangers brought together momentarily in a spiritual sanctuary, a few things surfaced, were made crystal clear. They are nervous; they are unsettled; these workers are uncertain and fearful. All of their anxieties and alarms are about their continued presences in the mostly junior government jobs that they hold. Will they still be there? For how much longer? How will they manage and care for their families? What will become of them?
Editor, this is not one of those situations where these little worker bees are senior officers, or political appointments, or sinecures, or placeholders. From my observations, the people speaking to me and holding these jobs are small servants in the public service who are not from across the losing side of the divide and the usual distinctive identification strains, especially hue. What I saw and heard were citizens, who do a real job as part of the cog that is the machinery of the state.
Since these are line workers, they should not be looking over their shoulders in dread, while waiting for call and conversation that it is over, as in the time and presence not needed anymore. Regrettably, this is just the way things are presently, where these people are too precariously perched for comfort, in too many government places of employment. There was an era decades ago, when the party card had more value than a US visa. Today, that has returned, with the difference being there is no card, just the unwritten codes, the hard decisions, the unfinished traumas of Guyana.
It should not be. This is not democracy. None of this inspires to unity. Moreover, it is not of the sweetly crafted leadership scripts read faithfully – along with their embedded promises – at the inauguration; instead, those verbal plasters are highlighted for what they are: patented deceptions that came out of the National Cultural Center one recent Saturday morning. The plights and perils of these little people – real or imagined, substantive or exaggerated – stand as proofs. As said, this should not be.
As an aside, as a teenaged civil servant from way back, there was little of that fear felt by me, despite obvious racial passions and potencies. I chalk this up to youth, being single, and ever ready to show a finger. Almost 50 years later, I still raise that same finger at government deceivers and cheaters, whichever party it may be. Whether young or veteran, with family or free, of this colour or that, why are there these apprehensions today that ought not to be? At this low level? And possibly through the length and breadth of the politicized public service. We may have a systemic pogrom going on, but we say nothing, pretending to know nothing just like the Northern Europeans of before. Soon they could come from me.
By way of another digression, the reality of pre-2015 was that senior party czars had to have their way: audit consequences overridden, taxes evaded, problematic matters taken away from professionals and rechanneled to political hacks for fixing. Seems that we are on that road again in different ways and different public service places. It is of governance infested and overrun by rancid and rancorous politics. And in this country, there is none more savaging than post-elections politics. I wonder if these are samples of the ethics, inclusivity, and transparency of which President Ali likes to propound at every opportunity. The scriptwriters have placed the right words in the president’s mouth that come out right. But when I listened to those anxious people late last week, I am reminded again that His Excellency is flush with words, but his bowl is of the same old materials and refuse. Words are cheap and shallow. Real life in government service is stalked by real fear. I humbly urge the man who wears the president’s mantle to say something about that, then do something meaningful to implement genuine change.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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