OP:ED We must grow up, be responsible for ourselves, live self-determination

Nov 18, 2022 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Guyana is confirmed with each new development as being less of a country, and more of a brutal tribal camp.  We already knew that, need no reminder.  Still, we fool ourselves in thinking that we are anything but tribal and ancient, or shortsighted and narrow.  It is obvious now that there are some places that we shrink from going; others who should be warned and blocked from going there, are lauded for doing our heavy lifting, our dirty jobs.

I reflect on three recent instances of outsiders invading our space, telling us what is right for us, and how we should go about our business.  Advice is always welcomed, but in the end, movements rest with us, those controlling and/or influencing the home to some degree. The three foreigners were the British High Commissioner to Guyana, the American Ambassador to Guyana, and Exxon’s Country Head in Guyana.  The first addressed that ticking time bomb (“voters list”), the second spoke of another disputed area (“inclusion”), and the Country Head touched another nerve (“right government”).  Whether they had a right to, or were wrong, to express publicly what was said, with position taken, is not the primary issue.  My positions are public, and they are where I stand.  Not so much as what is good or bad for the PNC or PPP but what is good for Guyana.  I repeat what is good for Guyanese, not the PPP or PNC.  Their interests and my views of both are secondary.

Clearly, my fellow Guyanese see matters differently.  For immediately, segments of citizens readily identified with or against the British plenipotentiary’s statement.  Why?  Because it favoured their politics, and interpreted to give them either a boost, or a battering ram.  Even so, my main consideration is that there are some spaces into which even friends must not be allowed to go.  I continue to employ the home (camp) to emphasize this simple illustration, the High Commissioner should be welcomed in our living room to converse about trade and opportunities, culture and exchanges, or relationships and growing.  But neither the High Commissioner nor the Ambassador nor corporate Country Head should be greeted warmly for venturing – I say straying – into the chambers of our intimacies.

Now, I insist that “voters’ list” and “inclusion” and “right government” all have their merits, regardless of who posits.  But those are all sacred preserves of those who are part of the domestic hearth; and which only Guyanese can resolve enduringly.  Helpful neighbours and caring family could offer wise counsel.  Then go their way, and hold their peace.  Taking a public position for this one or the other on disputed matters, only fuels high fires; and reduces the speaker(s) to considerations of favouring one at the expense of the other.  Those who do that in domestic partner disputes have learned that hard lesson, pulled up sharply, even locked out of friendship.

As much as I am against the High Commissioner (“voters’ list”), and for the American Ambassador’s government interest in “inclusion” in Guyana, I think that these are tumors and traumas that we have to work through ourselves and fix (or fail) ourselves, with a tactful diplomatic hand from outsiders.  But all within bounds.  Sometime or the other, we are going to have to stand on our feet, be the best judge of what is best for us.  I understand and appreciate our hurtful political and socio-culture.  Yet, I reject established norms in this cluster of diverse, damningly divided, bitter peoples.  Some things, some matters, some issues, are (must be) beyond the customary reflexive of ‘PPP’ or ‘PNC.’  They are national, and house our pride as a polity, our self-respect as a people.  If and when, High Commissioner, Ambassador, Country Head, all take it upon themselves to decide on where they go in our national home, and pronounce as they please, then where is the self-determination of which we speak so boldly and loudly? What can we do for ourselves when we shrivel from national challenges, cherish foreign dependency?

This is bigger than whether they are wrong or had the right.  It is about when we, the Guyanese people, will grow up, be responsible for ourselves.  When ready to take present and future into our frail, shaky hands. I speak not of unity, only simple sensibility.  What transforms us into the politically prejudiced are way larger than the PPP or PNC, and both together.  They are national in scope.  We are either a nation, or we are dependent nincompoops.  We must be responsible for ourselves, and no matter how draining, we must start sometime, somewhere, to someplace.  It is time we mature overnight, do some things on our own, and take our destiny in our own hands.  If not, it is the next foreigner, leaving us chained to only PPP and PNC horrors.

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