We should be linking arms, not butting heads

Aug 25, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – We observe the current sharp back and forth between a senior government leader and the leadership of the International Decade for People of African Descent (IDPADA-G), and wish it were not so. When we consider that this follows the clash between the Guyana Public Service Cooperative Credit Union and the PPP/C Government, with the dispute reaching to the Court, we regret the waste of time, energy, and resources in fighting each other. This is the worst time that leading groups in this country should be taking aim at one another, undermining the other, or attempting to weaken the other. We say it, once again, there is no objective that can provide the basis for broadsiding each other, and draining our respective strengths, considering the sensitive place at which this country is presently perched.

We must make two things clear immediately. The first is that we at this paper do not condone any kind of wrongdoing, particularly when it involves money alleged to have been mishandled or misused. Anyone in any entity that has crossed the line into distinctively questionable activity, if not outright fraud, should have the book thrown at him or her, and without fail or leniency. We simply have too much of this kind of misconduct in this country.

The second is that anything that hints of racial tinge, or is driven by such motivations, meets with our harsh condemnation.

With those two points made, we move on to the need for linking arms at this critical juncture in our history. We have been butting each other’s heads too long, and to the point of dizziness and weakness. This is what happens when Guyanese continue attacking Guyanese for some purpose, real or exaggerated, while those who prey upon us without a second thought, plunder our patrimony at will, and laugh at us with increasing scorn, have a clear road to ride all over us. This is how they get away with the equivalent of murder and keeping us captive to their roguishness, multi-billion dollar swindles.

It has been said a million times, but one more time is not going to hurt, and may even open our eyes to the truth of our vulnerable position. When we are divided and at each other’s throats, we are more than walking wounded, we are nothing but shadows of walking dead. This is from the strengths and wisdoms that we squander, leaving little to call upon when needed to put up a meaningful fight against those who rob us, and then make jokes about us to our faces.

We have a superpower sitting across the table from us, according to a top leader. We have the country leader of that corporate superpower, selling us this shaving cream of Guyana having the ‘best contract ever’ and some of us nod our heads in surrender, and join in the mocking laughter that follows. It is while they fetch away our wealth, and then cheat us before our eyes, through gouging us in the billions from behind the blanket of cost recovery. We refuse even to put up a fight that does honour to us, since some have already come out on the side of those ripping us off with a strong position that the superpower adversary is credible in what is submitted, and those Guyanese who claim the opposite are guilty of “misleading” the public. This reveals how our minds work in premeditated fashion, and our presence represents the frailty of those with a premature beginning in life.

This is the time when we need to hold one head, speak with one voice, and march as one front. It is to demonstrate to those dividing us and taking advantage of us, that we will not be a party to their tricks. All Guyana must be wise to the divide and conquer strategies at work, especially when they come from their compromised local collaborators and their agents. When we channel our rage and energies against a common national exploiter, then a start has been made. And when we give national unity and harmony a try, we just may be surprised at where that can take us, and what we have missed out all our lives.