Better governance – why then, and not now

Jun 05, 2022 Letters

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Dear Editor,

The more I think of it, the more there is the conclusion that Guyana is an erratic, eccentric, country speaking politely or a heavily bigoted one, to be candid. It involves this elusive business called clean governance, as in better governance; governance that is dependable, leadership that is trustworthy, output credible. We claim to want it urgently, and when it is not there we know, and make a big stink about it, with voices raised and feet pounding in public agitation. We did so before, movement came. We need to do so again, given all that is happening, but this time we are as unmoving as the Seawalls, and as unconcerned as swine rolling in sewage, its overwhelming stench.
In the era of Burnham, Guyanese were up in arms and out on the streets. Not here! Not like this! No more of this! Behind noise and energy were the powerful perceptions of chronic leadership and governance wrongdoings. This was well supported by broad general observations, individual and collective experiences, and disturbing domestic realities. It was all made for sense that was strong and straight. Movement occurred on the political front; the door opened on a new age of Guyanese governance.
Since then, now almost three decades later, this country has been visited with governments and leaders and governance circumstances that have covered the map. They ranged from the different and helpful (at best), to barbaric and ugly (no overstatement) to an interlude that manifested eases (in some material respects) for approximately five years, and to a state of near absolute horror (to put understatedly) in the last two years.
To compress 30 years of leadership and governance in 30 words take some doing, but I try. We have had unbelievably costly corruptions, a rampant two-headed beast called drugs and money laundering, more claims of rigging, more states of agitating, and incomparable leadership vileness. To those I would add inexplicable killings (some criminal, others extrajudicial), double standards of justice, and always deepening, and ever-rising strains of prejudices and related partisan passions.
While there was a cross-sectional gathering of Guyanese challenging openly the heavy excesses of Burnham and the PNC (minus the drug dealings and money washings), there has been nothing of the kind when more of the same, and more of the worse (never experienced here), have become the embedded character and conduct of both leadership and what pretends to be governance for most of 23 years, and now all of the near last two years.
What happened, what is different about Guyana and Guyanese this time around? The same governance corruptions, the same heavy-handed leadership states and fears, and the same overpowering abhorrence and the results of the 60s, 70s, and 80s of the 20th century are the very things that now infest the anxiety-filled lives and the simmering living conditions of Guyanese in this second millennia. And the key is that it is to a greater extent in every area, plus some newer and slicker ones now the norm of today’s Guyana, where governance is concerned.
Nobody is saying much of anything now, even though quite many recognise and are feeling the effects of what is operating in both high leadership and government quarters. Other than for a few springing up here and there to register some fight, there is indifference, lots of lethargy, even much malaise and the apathy that comes from all those. The few voices raised in protest against the leadership and governance onslaughts of the present are listened to, then routinely dismissed. Some may say that it is a different time. I think the truth is that we have become a different people.
What united before (corruption, poor leadership, troubled states) take a backseat to hard, unyielding political partisanship. To say that there is edged racial underpinning hits the nerve, but that’s all, for there is contentment with that ugly individual and communal brutishness, regardless how it undermines the future of the national state. What made leaders worry before is now largely condoned, so they feel free to make a mockery of accountability, while having a loud laugh over transparency. The leadership attitude is: who cares? It is one of ‘we are in charge, there are no contenders.’
The smugness and shallowness-crookedness and barbarousness also come from the belief that there are fearsome foreign friends that will not fail in the crux, should matters get warm. The repeated lesson of history is that complacency and misplaced insensitivity occur too frequently, including right here. Because when a sufficient cohort of citizens rise up in unmanageable indignation, then all bets are off. Foreigners weigh what is best for their interests, while watching for which natives offer the best allies forward.
As the daily reality of Guyana seethe with bigger wedges being driven more deeply by leaders in this PPP Government into wider segments of this society, Guyanese will come to a crossroad that forces them to decide what they stand for, what they are inside. Only so many can be bought out; so many fooled; and so many lacking what it takes to be a contributory presence towards these ideals called democracy, inclusive governance, and trusted leadership.
We cannot go on as a society when we are one way at one time, and then another at a different time, when the compelling national issues are unchanged, and just as burning. We are either as one for what is nationally wholesome, or we are nothing. Nothing!

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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