No volcano here in Guyana, except in economic development and modernization

Oct 14, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

Allow me to refer to a missive carried by Wireja.com, an online publication that recently made shockingly false claims about what is transpiring in Guyana. I refuse to repeat the false claims and so-called warnings about racial antagonism in the ‘Land of Many Waters.’ Yet, the essential falsehoods must be confronted by those with actual experience in Guyana. The most egregious of these destructive propositions is that Indians and Africans are in some kind of deep-seated conflict that cannot be addressed through our political system.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and I have proof, proof that no Jamaican relying on a false newsfeed from New York can counter with any credibility.

On July 4, 2022, I spent four to five hours in Buxton, a village with a history of indefatigable resistance to any form of domination. It is also a village of considerable symbolic importance in the milieux of African ‘Black’ Consciousness. ‘Black’ as used here refers to a form of political identity, not a morphological trait. The occasion was an outreach by cabinet ministers.

I took careful notes of the entire proceedings. I can report with absolute certainty that not a single person aired grievances couched in the language of race. Not once, not by anyone. Rather, all the criticisms and requests were about fixing roads, bridges, the cricket ground, the basketball court, access to scholarships, contracts for work done in Buxton and beyond, and other matters normally discussed at a standard town-hall type meeting.

Not far away, less than half a mile, in fact, was a picket led by a well-known overseas academic. I counted about ten protesters who held up signs about racism. There was a steady stream of people brushing past the little, insignificant noise.

Two weeks before the Buxton engagement with seven cabinet ministers, Vice President Jagdeo was in Paradise Village (Region 5), where a majority Afro-Guyanese audience spent hours discussing things. Jagdeo was there to facilitate part-time jobs (10 hours a month for GY $40,000), and to also urge young people (especially) to apply for GOAL scholarships. The vitriol and dooms-day emotionalism evident in Wireja.com and its code-source, ‘Village Voice’, were notably absent.

Update. Only days ago, top PNC black nationalists (in the regressive sense of that term, not as used by Walter Rodney), the principal issue of concern is that people in Linden are beginning to embrace the PPP.

Guyana is not at war. The warning and so-called predications about a volcanic eruption here are actually calls to do the same. Advocacy for violence is taking the form of analysis and predication, an old tactic of a key WPA figure. Several of these activists of doom live outside of Guyana. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the Diaspora is posing more of a threat to national security and to nation-building than anyone else.

Sincerely,

Dr. Randy Persaud

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