PPP Govt. and some Guyanese – common conduct

Jun 07, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

I observe the President and Vice President making the rounds and sharing rounds of good cheer, and I remember wishfully some of the things that many of us in the diaspora used to do. There are some common threads in what the PPP Government does today, which aligns closely with the behaviour of overseas-based Guyanese who mostly continue in the same way today. I should know because it had its pluses, but also rammed home to me the reality of this poor society across many segments of its vast expanse.
In times past, there was the annual trek back to the homeland, and the festivities began at JFK. At home, nobody was left out, not fellow traveller, not villager, not neighbour, not stranger. I knew what it was to be a pork-knocker back in town, and a sailor arriving onshore (there were no oil rigs then). Whoever was around partook, was made to feel welcome, a hand extended: a drink, a ‘raise’, a pack of smokes for adults; for the children it was ice-cream and sweets and whatever else caught their fancy in the public places, while the music blared, liquids flowed, and good cheer roared. It was almost always in December; then it was back to the cold, blue yonder, the canyons and challenges and contests of Wall Street. Oil companies were ever part of the mix to be studied and stripped apart, with capitalism watched, benefited from, and understood to its soul. This was what financed the mainly annual profligate sojourns here. It was good while it lasted, and for those fortunate to be within hand reach, the arc of holiday time. After all of that, I always asked myself quietly and insistently, in the times after, what am I doing? What difference is this making, other than a momentary blip on someone’s day? These handouts, and they were nothing but (no matter how kindly viewed) what do they tell me?
Editor, what do they tell me and the rest of Guyanese, be they of the diaspora, or of local settlers, including government and opposition leaders and members? I can speak for myself only. The little good cheer, the charity by another name, of one individual (and most likely planeloads of them) only went so far, and then it was back to the grind of wanting and not having; of struggling and not managing; of fearing and not knowing what tomorrow brings. This is what brings me to today’s PPP Government and its leaders.
Fishermen and farmers, who were flooded out, have been handed cash. The disabled and those dependent on sugar have been temporarily sweetened. Those are all good and I cheer. But what about the many that are down and out, and outside the range of the President’s and Vice President’s interest, hence no attention and awards? Surely, they are also due some benevolence from this PPP Government, some magnanimousness from both President and Vice President? It cannot be so skewed, so piecemeal, so calculated in the limits of its cash infusions, the exclusion from the ‘One Guyana’ enclosure of which I hear so much. There must be a vision and a programme (many of those) that are so cogent that they are cohesive, with none left out, not one left behind. There are just too many of those in our midst, and the thought pains, because of our new times, this new oil age.
I know enough to know that there are multitudes of Guyanese who have no one, have nothing, get nothing, not even the passing relief, and do somehow exist. The out of sight and out of consideration forgotten Guyanese. The ones that everyone know are out there, are hurting, and know not what to do about their predicaments. A little hand for a loaf, money for medicine, a shirt given to a stranger, they are all nice and psychically exhilarating, but after then what? What about those who didn’t even get that bit of fleeting respite? From any source, grateful and gracious citizen or a government that find it in itself to be understanding, caring, encircling?
I leave with this: a government, a president, a Vice President, of a nation is not a visitor, a diaspora member, a sailor, a pork-knocker. The latter cohorts deal in the moment, the personal thrill, the sense of self-satisfaction. A government and leader(s) should be, must be greater and grander than the sum of all those. I don’t know if this makes sense, stirs anyone, but I took the time and did have the heart to share publicly.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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