New Year’s greetings and wishes

Jan 03, 2021 Editorial

Kaieteur News – From the Kaieteur News media network, we extend best wishes for 2021 to our readers, fellow citizens of Guyana and the world, brothers and sisters all, wherever present, however accessing this message. Our message is for health, peace and the goodness that comes from above, for from that all the rest will follow.
As we begin this brand-new year, we are hopeful. We think and believe that we can be joyful, but only if we are prepared to listen, learn, and apply the lessons gained. As Guyanese, we should not want to go back to the many troubling things from the just concluded 2020. With the hindsight of perfect vision that comes from that combination of digits, we do not even want to look back at what was the best of times and the worst of times.
It was the best due to the rediscovery of democracy (of a peculiar foreign-aided kind), the best for more discoveries of rich optimism laden oil fields, and it was best for the partial sparing that we got from the arrival and assaults of the raging COVID-19 pandemic. There are other things that, we are sure, would rank just as high in terms of what many others visualise and evaluate as ‘best’ in the happenings of this country in 2020.
And, while so, there were those other developments that left disturbed and weary and jaded. This was for the simple reason that they represented what were the worst kinds of situations holding the worst projections for our prospects as hopeful individuals and as a poor nation struggling to come into its own from the blessings that we have.
Among the worst were the sharp reminders of how divided and hateful and venomous we are, and how much we delight in nothing else, but being at each other’s throats, with untold malice in our hearts. National elections do that to us, reduces to the worst instincts and bringing out the worst devils in our personal closets.
It goes without saying that this oil of ours has brought some of the worst human species around, like lethal snakes picking up the overpowering scent of prey and moving in for the kill. But, perhaps still worse, is that for which we don’t have to look too far, and think too long, since they are right here. That of which we write today would be the human political detritus that pollutes us with the ruthless ferocity of the COVID-19 virus. Like the pandemic, the local human political detritus comes under all kinds of costumes and with many secrets that project the worst of ills for expectant citizens.

They disguise themselves with falsehoods wrapped in the national flag, the flag of democracy, the flag of principled and prudent business management of this oil of ours. Better men that our Guyanese leaders have fallen for the temptations that the foreign corporate powers place before them, have surrendered to the irresistible greed and covetousness that have been the nature of mineral wealth in general, and oil wealth in particular.

We must be ready to learn and to adapt, for we must not go down the road that brings anger, despair and, inevitably, conflict. And this is where we are as publisher and staff and communication channels, whether newspaper, radio station, or whatever the technology permits in cyberspace. As we ponder where we went wrong and what we did wrong in 2020, we just have to commit sincerely to doing what is right in 2021, and on so many fronts.

Through doing right, getting rid of secrecy in governance, including from leadership, involving practices and, especially, when called upon to explain or elaborate. Doing right means not selling the Guyanese more sixes for nines, merely speaking to truth, being transparent. Let us commit in 2021, from the top and bottom (in any order), to work towards building a society that could embark on a real lasting peace with ourselves, so that we can appreciate what is at stake with our wealth, and how we all can be wealthy people from it.
Last, we wish for the health to contribute to Guyana’s growth and prosperity for all. Best for 2021 to all.

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