The psychic make-up of a nation 55 years after Independence

May 26, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – I live directly opposite the massive Caribbean owned supermarket, Massy Mega. I go to Massy Mega almost daily. As I turn north from the Railway Embankment onto the street that leads to the supermarket, I am constantly reminded that this country is not one of, but the world’s only enduring tragedy. The parapets on both sides of that street are never weeded. And as you look at it you ask yourself; “Is this a country in the 21st century?” Please note that the CARICOM Secretariat annex is on that very street.
Two White Englishmen did the unthinkable two weeks ago in this land. They were rude to a minister, asking him in an unacceptable manner to leave their business place, which they illegally operated. In any country anywhere on Planet Earth, you cannot be so flippant to a minister of government. It just doesn’t happen in the real world. But it happened in a country you would expect it to occur in for reasons that would be explained below.
The two men had lived in Guyana for years before the incident. It is obvious they had seen things that made them feel we are a 10th rate banana republic. Whatever we are, it does not give them licence to insult a minister and they should have been removed from Guyana peremptorily. But if we do not shape our collective psyche to be 21st century people and to bring Guyana into the 21st century, there are going to be dozens more like them.
The point is, after 55 years of Independence we have to stop appearing in the eyes of the world as a tragic, idiotic land. It is patriotic stupidity to deny that this country is a psychological wasteland where it appears to foreigners as an awfully backward place in terms of the shape of the collective psyche.
Can we think of anything those two men would have seen to make them feel that in this country no one cares about the values of life so anyone can come to Guyana and just do what they want? Surely, they must have seen the stench that permeates the capital city. How long that stench was around? Long before 55 years of Independence. Drive around the capital and you are compelled to say that no capital of a Caribbean country should have such a sickening appearance.
Those two men must have driven through the bushes of that street where the CARICOM annex and Massy Mega are. Those two men must have had anxiety attacks when for four years they saw Guyanese behaving like jungle animals at the junction of UG Road and the Railway Embankment where the traffic signals stopped working.
It isn’t hard to research the sad psychology of the people of this tragic nation. Ten years ago, we were at 45 years of Independence. Go back at that time to the letter sections of the daily newspapers. Read about how commercial banks treated small depositors. We are at 55 now and two weeks ago, two letters appear about the identical complaints we read 10 years ago.
It must be painful to ask – what happened in those 10 years? No one in authority or no one with conscience looked into this human dilemma the past 10 years. What more evidence does one need that this country has permanently broken down than what I am about to describe.
Two of the country’s most brilliant economists in the past 40 years – Drs. Maurice Odle and Clive Thomas – were part of the government, 2015-2020. Yet after their party, the WPA, lost government, the very party wrote a public letter expressing anger at how the commercial banks treat small customers. The sadness of this situation lies in a commonsensical question – what were they in government for?
I know how tragic this country is because it affects me daily. I get a pension from my former workplace and the NIS. After 55 years of Independence, the form I have to submit for these pensions can only be signed by seven, I repeat, seven categories of people. This is a leftover from colonial times. No human in this country has the mental strength and psychological integrity to change it.
A famous citizen 54 years after Independence is accused of killing a famous athlete in a road accident. In testimony in court, the police witness said the breathalyser machine, at the time the driver was tested, had malfunctioned. At most public buildings, there is the sign, “no sleeveless dress permitted.” I guess a woman looks like a donkey in a sleeveless dress thus the ban. This is an extremely young, tragic nation that Nietzsche’s Übermensch has to save. Can he?

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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The psychic make-up of a nation 55 years after Independence

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