We must respect each other

Mar 19, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – On Thursday, we observed Phagwah. We hope that our fellow Guyanese, particularly our Hindu brothers and sisters had a joyous national holiday. It would give us greater pleasure, a deeper sense of satisfaction, if we were to behold the unimaginable. That is, all Guyanese truly joining in sharing a personal and national handshake, an exchange of heartfelt courtesies, befitting what is both a special moment, and time of deep reflection.
Phagwah is as good as any time, it may be asserted, perhaps, one of the best that there could be, to think of what brings us together, blends us into what is the immaculate essence of truly ‘One People, One Nation, One Destiny.’ There can be no greater Phagwah gift than that, no sweeter blessing to be savoured than such a contemplation such a long-awaited condition, which has always eluded us, mocked our promise.
We are individually and collectively responsible, more than anyone else, for our state and our plight. While this should not blight our Phagwah celebrations, it is not the same when it is not much more than a cultural holiday held high and ‘holi’ by only one segment of our national brotherhood and sorority. We can do better, and we must try to do so, to get there, with the best of our energies, the most of our abilities. We have not done so, none of us, when we fail to look at and appreciate the underpinnings of the festival of Holi.
We say this because Phagwah is a time of thanksgiving, and forgetting and forgiving, of mending and beginning the sometimes – long process of healing. In times of thanksgiving for what is received, there are no lodgings for the acids and stains and toxins of rancor, of remembrances of past wrongs and ills. That should be our mindset, amid the playing and partnering, the joy and laughter. It is the way it ought to be in and out of Phagwah but regrettably is not.
We hold on to too much, and for too long. We may laugh at the lameness of others, but we hide from the lameness that we inflict upon ourselves, both Hindus and non-Hindus, and all of Guyanese persuasion. Our long and durable denials put a damper on what should be grand moments of the national polity that we yearn to be (or say that we do), but of which we distance from doing anything to close the gaps into which we forever fall.
We can continue to fool ourselves that we are of one people, but there is that bottom line issue that just will not go away: for how long, and to what destination? At a time when we are poised on the cusp of a national breakout, if not national greatness, we are content to remain in a pathetic and forlorn state of huddled smallness. Together we can move mountains and the mighty; apart we are picked at will, and made into the mince meats that we have become. Thus, we are kicked at will, and made fools of endlessly by those trusted, by those who come from distant shores to teach us what are nothing less than more harsh lessons in what is impoverishing.
When we should have the world at our feet, we are delighted to have our hands around each other’s throats. It is why our celebrations at the official levels, always have an air of the artificial about them, a sense of forced gaiety, of things that have to be done, and gotten over with in studied hypocrisies all adorned with bright smiles, brighter ribbons, and the brightest pretenses.
Phagwah, like Christmas and Eid, is about what came from above. Yet, we thrill in reaching for what is beneath us, in an endless quest to outrace each other to the bottom. Be it Phagwah or any other national day of peaceful rest from toil, we clap our hands and confess to being impressed with the shallowness of our existence. We can make these times of thanksgiving better, come to mean much more. But only if we start to respect each other as brother, as sister, as genuine neighbor, and as fellow traveller along the road that is Guyana’s destiny.

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We must respect each other

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