Exxon bringing out the brass band

Apr 01, 2021 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The management of ExxonMobil does not like where the company is in the minds of Guyanese, and it is readying to do something about that unsatisfying state of things. This is what we published on March 28 in the article captioned, “ExxonMobil seeks to give its local reputation a facelift.” Truth be told, the company needs more than a facelift: it needs a full body bath, with the most powerful detergents utilised lavishly.
We will be frank and right from the get-go: we are suspicious and skeptical. Count us among the tiny army of the watchful, who will laud Exxon when it prioritises that which is more of substance, and less of cosmetics. Guyanese do not need public relations propaganda, as they get more than they can swallow from local political and commercial leaders, who are suspected to be in bed with Exxon, and part of its well-oiled machinery for their own prosperity. We take the opportunity to tell Exxon that the angry citizens of this country do not need, and have no use, for slick images and sweet feel-good stories of how well Exxon means, and all the wonderful things it is doing, which can mean so much to this country.
No! On behalf of our fellow Guyanese, we deliver this message to the executives and managers and strategic thinkers of Exxon: save that facelift (propaganda) money. Spare the public relations (facelift) efforts. Cast aside that strategy, for it will not fool Guyanese one bit, as to how good Exxon can be for here. Not when all the riches go to Exxon. Not when Exxon looked at our pathetic circumstances (politics, ethnics, economics, and civics) and took us to the cleaners. Not when Exxon has gored us in the gut, and stabbed us in the scrotum (like Brutus did to Julius Caesar), and laid waste to our dreams. Not when Exxon has made the fullest use of the age-old practice of divide and conquer, of setting us even more against one another. And not when Exxon has bought out and compromised into uselessness our political and professional elites, our civil society, and significant swathes of this society.
Any facelift operation by Exxon is about smoothing over wrinkles, but leaving the cancerous skin unaddressed and unremedied. Any facelift operation to salvage its shabby reputation before Guyanese is nothing more than clipping dirty fingernails, while refusing to sanitise its clawing hands all the way past its nasty elbows and above its smelly armpits. Exxon is bent on continuing its sordid slickness. For now, it is preparing to hire Guyanese to mislead Guyanese still more. Now it is getting Guyanese companies and Guyanese minds to figure out ways on how to undermine their fellow citizens some more. This is the power of the foreign Yankee dollar to mesmerise simple local minds first and then pauperise them further.
Guyanese will not be persuaded by any facelift that Exxon displays before them, for the company’s scars would still be visible, and they are ugly. Exxon does not need a skin graft on its deceiving face; it needs to stop grafting from the guts and groins of Guyanese. Exxon will find out soon enough that it is in dire need of more than cosmetic surgery: the company needs, and immediately, a full-scale operation to purge it of the many financial perversities that it has placed on Guyana, and which plagues the promises of our prosperity.
This is what Exxon needs to do, and must do with the sharpest of urgencies. Exxon should concentrate on the things that matter to Guyanese. It must give them more money. It must bring more respect in its dealings with the peoples of this country. It must cease thinking of itself as a conquering colonial master, with pitiful peons for subjects; people who will fall for the gimmicks and tricks of smoothening and soothing public relations professionals. Guyanese do not need paid nursemaids to help them to see what Exxon wants them to see, and in a way that makes the company look good to them.
No! Instead, Exxon must focus on what it takes to be a true partner, and not an exploiter of the rankest order. It must be more of a giver and way less of such an imbalanced and imperious taker. Exxon should leave alone that business about getting a facelift. Exxon should step forward and deliver not a facelift, but the fullness of finances that matter. That will mean much to the greatest majority of citizens in this country.

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