Truth and reconciliation

Aug 04, 2021 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Presently, there are a few things that Guyanese do not like to speak about, of which one is truth and reconciliation. We have neither time, interest nor energy to get serious and be genuinely engaged in anything related to truth and reconciliation. This nation’s time and interests are fully focused on other things, which are more immediate, tangible, and personally and tribally rewarding.
Oil is one of the enriching things that enchant us and hold us captive, like a moth to a flame. Cult leaders and their exercise of power is another. But, perhaps, the biggest of all is how Guyanese will line-up and bow down uncaringly to speak the language leaders speak, to prioritise the things they do, and to denounce any others, who don’t get with the programme of divisive tribal leaders.
Currently, the oil is like that white rabbit that skilled magicians pull from hats. Guyanese are hypnotised and distracted by the practiced hand movements of the magicians we have for political leaders that we lose sight of the bigger picture. That is, what the supporting cast of trusted helpers are engaged in right before our eyes, and in their corruptions. But just so that there is the mistaken impression that this editorial is about oil, we quickly correct such a misconception. This is about truth and reconciliation, and how something that should matter so much to us (and it does very highly), we could care less about, for all the attention and energy that we invest in it.
We deliberately use oil as part of our urgently needed truth and reconciliation background, because of its harsh and bitter and painful lessons known from other societies that have had much longer association with this most quarrelsome of commodities. It is because whatever passions and prejudices were there before in any poor struggling society multiplied hundredfold, once the news came that oil was discovered in bountiful commercial quantities. The finding of oil in Africa and Latin America has led to intensifying divisions and hatreds in those lucky (or cursed) countries that tasted its rich presence. Divisions and hatreds have sharpened along class lines, religious lines, and racial lines. Sometimes, it has even been along sectional lines.
While hurrying, scheming empowered leaders in divided societies work tirelessly and crookedly to capitalise on the incredible prosperities of their nation’s oil wealth, (for self and their own circle, of course), the rest of their sullen and seething society watch and never, ever, surrender to the promises that they will get their fair share of the bonanza from under the ground, or below the sea. There are the randomly chosen, but more glaring, examples of oil rich Nigeria in Africa, of Iraq in the volatile Middle East, and of Venezuela in manipulated Latin America. Speak of truth and reconciliation in any of those societies, and the anger sharpens, the distrusts rush in torrents.
The truth and reconciliation boat kept bypassing Nigeria for decades now, because of the devastating sectional and religious and tribal divides. Despite all of its billions of barrels of oil produced and shipped, that nation’s poor is poorer. It had a civil war in the late 1960s, but matters still remain unresolved, while a nation lives with its riches, and its raw, oozing wounds. Is that Guyana next in line?
In Iraq, the fissures and ruptures are largely of an intra-religious and tribal nature, and a virtual civil war unfolded there, too. It was because, nobody listened, and the oil fell into the hands of cunning political leaders, one in particular, who pitted the peoples against one another. We could talk forever about haves and have nots, but who is listening? Could Guyana be an Iraq in waiting? Though we would hope not, the ingredients of such a situation are all present, and they bubble furiously.
And even if we insist on burying our heads in the sand, there is Venezuela next door to remind us of the futility of our ways, and of the roads that our self-centred leaders take us down. Unless we think hard and long about some form of truth and reconciliation, and soon, we risk trouble here. Just like those countries named.

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