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The best of all possible worlds

Oct 21, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – The Guyana I grew up in was grim. Times were hard. The country was broke. Despite the Comrade Leader’s best efforts, the people were unhappy. The economy was on its last legs and you paid an arm and a leg for contraband flour, potatoes, and split peas.
If there was one good thing I could say about those times it was that people could queue. These days people will happily cut in front of you in a line and if you dare protest, you will receive a mouthful in return.
Back then people would wait their turn in line, sometimes for hours, for a loaf of bread. If on my way back from work, I saw a queue, I would ask someone in the line what they were queuing up for. That person had no idea. That person had seen a line and assumed something must be good at the other end.
Even in those trying times, people were optimistic. Optimism was all they had.
People are more than happy to describe themselves as ‘optimists’, but this used to be a rare bit of philosophical jargon. Leibniz coined it to explain his solution to the problem of theodicy – if God is all good and all powerful, why is there evil and suffering? He assumed that since God is all-powerful, and could have created any possible world, this world that he did create must be the best of all possible worlds.
Leibniz also invented calculus, causing maths students, even today, to pessimistically believe that that we live in the worst of all possible worlds.
Now, returning to Guyana, the Guyanese people still had hope.
In 1992 democracy was restored and the PPP/C took office, promising things would get better. After all, Cheddi was President and we were living in the best of all possible worlds.
Of course, things were never going to be quite rosy. Hoyte had flogged the country’s assets for a bag of beans. And Cheddi was in no mood for renationalisation.
By the 1990’s however, many were pessimistic and the PNC stalwarts were the most pessimistic of all.
For brief periods in the first decade of the 21st century, in between riots, mass killings and death squads, some people did live the good life. Times were getting better. The economy was improving. Jagdeo was President and this was the best of all possible worlds.
Much of the country, however, felt differently. When the PNC (for it was the PNC) returned in 2015, they too discovered the joys of optimism. We had struck oil. The economy was growing, Granger was President – truly this was the best of all possible worlds.
The past two years have been difficult. Rigged elections (by whomever), floods and global pandemic blanketed the country.
As the year draws to a close, I reflect on the national mood. It is 2021. Guyana is the fastest growing economy in the world. We are supposed to be rich and the future is supposed to be bright. Jagdeo is President… sorry Vice President… and we live in the best of all possible worlds. And yet no one is happy!
(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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