Master dredges, revelers in Guyana’s gutters

Sep 22, 2021 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The sound and fury came sharp and heavy. It is where anything occurring today, takes us back to all the rancid yesterdays that haunt Guyanese existence. Whenever the ugly is articulated and delivered, through any available medium, there is hunting for, and finding quickly, more of the same (or worse) to rebut to regain bragging rights. This is the Guyana soap opera of endless back and forth, with nobody making sense, no one gaining anything, and nothing being resolved to anybody’s satisfaction. Thus, the stage is set for more of the same nasty barbarities today, tomorrow, and whenever suits local fancies.
This was what took place in the fevered, bound to overheat environment, involving the Minister of Education, which snagged many into the treacherous coils of what passes for conversation in this country. Everyone showed how well-equipped they were in the low engagements and sickly entanglements of our bitter and increasingly brutalising political history. Those advocating on the Minister’s behalf expressed horror at the vileness of what was aimed at her. Those rushing out to defend the minister’s attackers startled with a remarkable line of examples of how, where, and when she did what that was the equivalent, if not utterly worse. And so it went back and forth, low and lower, with more calming, civilised ground given up enthusiastically. This is not merely public political secrets of unacceptable behaviour, but the smelly underbelly of a family feud now out of control.
For sure, the Minister of Education has a history. It speaks for itself, and needs no regurgitation or elaboration from us. It is sufficient to say that she makes for an inviting target. But the bigger point, the larger challenge is this: okay, whatever the merits or relevance (or lack of) in this instance of disagreements with the minister, how did matters deteriorate to this sharp, punishing pitch? That is, where one wrong, the current one, is more than counterbalanced by another one, which occurred in the past. In fact, many of them, more that upend the scales to the disadvantage of the minister.
To put differently, it is where wrong minus wrong equals the right to unleash more wrongs. It is how our determined attempts to be master dredgers for any useful corroborating wretched behaviour recently, or further back in time, present one and all with yet another opportunity for more revelers to jump into Guyana’s gutters, and have a good time. It is a case of two can play at this dirty game of sticking it to one another. Or in Guyanese lingo ‘knack back gat knack back’ and where ‘last lick’ is the order of the day, except that it never ends.
In the process, a lot of the same old local territory is covered, with facts and fabrications, or at least license is taken for exaggerations, running wild. This is what we call sober addressing of a lapse, a momentary failure. It is better to defend to the death, than yield an inch. No quarter is given, since there is an abundance of significant missteps by more than a few on both sides of the raging political and racial divide. Nobody is seeking a way out, to take timeout, and give a breather to ponder these questions: how long do we continue with this? And after that, where do we go from where we are woefully fastened?
The sharpened and waiting knives come out, and it is the free for all of let’s get on with it. Still, the question lingers: after all is said and done, then what, where to? If this land is ever going to be a real nation of the likeminded, then we are not just wasting time, but are also clueless in how we are creative in continuing to fool ourselves. Meaning, that there is some common beginning, some semblance of binding substance, that could take us somewhere, other than where we are stuck, which the clashing episodes surrounding the Minister of Education once again confirm. We are not a nation; we are an abomination. Instead of seekers and healers, we are master dredgers digging up sewage and gleefully plastering each other.

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