Guyana, the country with the world’s largest Diaspora

Jan 15, 2023 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – I was speechless when the Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr. Manzoor Nadir, said the following words, “We must make it harder for people to become citizens.”

He made that statement in an interview I did with him. Obviously, as a Guyanese, you know the last person in the entire world you expect to voice those sentiments about foreigners is a Guyanese. Surely, any other nationality but not a Guyanese.

Before we proceed, contextually it is important to note that Mr. Nadir has two children that have permanently settled in North America. Here are the words of trade unionist, Lincoln Lewis, “Unplanned immigration brings with it consequences such as stress on the education and health services, housing overrun, the creation of slums, and our resources exploited by others willing to undersell their labour. We also face a crisis of submerging our culture further. This threat comes from others who do not speak our language and share a common culture… we also face a crisis of submerging our culture… we are facing a pending catastrophe which we must seek to avoid at all cost.”

Important to note is that Mr. Lewis has children who live permanently in the US and his wife has settled in the US. I remember seeing a television interviewer who has a passport of another country and whose family lives abroad discussing with Mr. Lewis my column of Tuesday, April 9, 2019 titled, “Is Lincoln Lewis the Black version of White fascism?” that was critical of those words of Mr. Lewis.”

I kept looking at the interview hoping to see some objection from the interviewer on the distasteful nature of those words but there was none. The prominent interviewer did not offer an objection to what Lewis said.

What does one make of this kind of attitude from Guyanese to people coming here? After the interview with Mr. Nadir, I got a call from a top state official with strong political connections who told me he supports the position of Mr. Nadir. He said immigrants are coming to share in our oil wealth. That gentleman lived a long time in the US.

The nature of a people named Guyanese are clearly seen when one come to grips with the amazing, incredible, devastating fact that per capita, Guyana leads all the  countries in the world in sending its citizens to other lands. According to Forbes magazine, 36.4 percent of Guyana’s citizenry occupies space in other lands.

If Guyanese has a problem with other nationalities coming here to live then why are Guyanese going to other countries to settle? The last place Guyanese should migrate to is the US.

Immigrants to the US are arriving in a country that has enormous economic problems. Any sociologist and economist from any American university would tell you that the American dream is over. There are no longer the saccharine opportunities that people in the US after the Second World War.

To get a vivid picture of class changes in the US, one should read the statistics in the fantastic book by French economics professor, Thomas Piketty, titled “Capital in the 21^st Century.” The statistics shows a consistent trend of the downward slide of the working classes and middle classes in the US for the past 50 years.

Why are Guyanese running to the US when the US is no longer the land of honey? Guyanese know that. But they are still leaving this country en masse to go to the US where they probably put additional strain on the social services of New York.

So why are they leaving Guyana for the US? For the same reason, the Haitians, Venezuelans and Cubans leave their respective countries for Guyana. The answer is the dream of giving substance to existence, to make one’s life better, to ensure one’s family can survive.

I haven’t done the research but I believe 100 percent, not 99.99 percent but 100 percent of Guyanese that utter words of rejection of immigrants coming here has close family members enjoying a good life in other countries.

What psychological explanation the expert can come up with for people in a country named Guyana rejecting other nationalities coming here to live when that very country has the largest overseas population of all nations in the world.

It is like a veterinary surgeon. The last person you expect to treat an animal with violence is the Vet. You could understand a policeman or an accountant treating an animal with disdain but not a Vet. So why are we running away to other lands but we don’t want others to run to our land? I guess that question will torment and tantalize me forever.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• Freddie Kissoon, Guyanese, largest Diaspora, Lincoln Lewis, Mr. Manzoor Nadir

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