Hopes, then shattered hopes

Apr 08, 2024 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – When the news of the national oil wealth kept increasing, the hopes of Guyanese soared.  After slavery and indentureship, the sons and daughters of those who paid brutal prices would finally come into their own.  The assets long dreamed of had materialized.  The world could not stop talking about those.  The hopes of Guyanese kindled and flared.  This is it; this is the time.  At last.  At long last.

The world did change, but the world of ordinary Guyanese didn’t change for the better.  Hold on is the new mantra; better days are ahead.  The official word is revenue maximization.  Perhaps if this was said in the early baby days of oil production, there could be some understanding, patience.  The elected officials and their close companions who feast lavishly on the oil patrimony of all are the ones calling on many Guyanese to bottle their dreams and bury it for a while.

There is a struggle going on here: those who reap rich rewards from this oil insist that real riches are not ours yet, though the lives that they live tell a different story: a lying one.  A transparently deceiving one.  The people in the PPP Government flaunt their food and finery, but steer Guyanese into the waiting area, the bread line.  Sit still.  Good things will happen.  Just be understanding.  Those who live delightfully in the Guyana Dream condition (futilely) the masses of Guyana that their nightmare will pass.

This is what intensifies shattered hopes, prompts poor people to seek out common sufferers, pushes them to shelter in a self-reinforcing circle.  It was the Russian poet Yevtushenko who said that shattered hopes are what draws people together.  For they have had that common experience, when they should not, considering the circumstances that have combined to transform Guyana into the darling of the world.  Shattered hopes are from raw experience.  Hopes are what has not been lived, what is anticipated will be, but often crumbles before reached, before there is any touch and savoring.

The government’s top oil leader, the controller of the flow of affairs that have some connection to this commodity held so sacred by the world, lives in a self-inflicted haze.  He holds the hopes of Guyanese in check; but gives the freest rein to the army of foreign exploiters to run amok.  The foreign explorers and producers work skillfully and tirelessly to return with the best news for their own people.  The share price will be more.  The dividend will be more.  The rights and warrants (if any) will be more valuable.  The guarantee for the future is for more of the same.  The recipients-investors and other stakeholders-can count their present rich returns from the motherlode that is Guyana.  They can count on still richer returns in the future on which their hopes are vested.  They have harvested from their hopes already, their hopes run high for the future.  Theirs is the best of both worlds: the experience of now, and the ones that promise to be.

This is the backdrop against which the shattered hopes of Guyanese play out.  Indian Guyanese.  African Guyanese.  Amerindian Guyanese.  All other Guyanese of whatever demographic blend, who are not in the charmed circle of insiders and hustlers.  All these Guyanese can say in complete honesty that their experience has been of shattered hopes.  Having been held off, having been disappointed and dismissed, having been denied, at every step of their existence, they are still being asked to hope.  That they have done so in vain has been forgotten, rushed over, brushed aside.  Their own have sold them out.  Their own are still selling them a bag of hopes.  It was Chairman Mao who said: ‘dare to struggle, dare to win.’  By sheer force of will, the bold and determined can force winning against the odds.  This is where our people fall apart.  In Bharrat Jagdeo and Irfaan Ali, I see men who shred themselves of courage, have willingly shed credibility.  In Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton, I think there is man who can do more, must represent much.

Guyanese are crying because they are in pain.  Guyanese are giving up hope because their sense, their convictions and conclusions, is that their interests are last in line.  The foreign companies’ priorities come first, second, and third.  The local comrades and their cronies (PPP Government) have slickly positioned themselves, so that their sharing in the oil is guaranteed money in the bank.  It doesn’t matter whether it is by hook or crook.  When the foreigners feed first at the Guyana oil trough, and the next in line are the arrangers and self-enrichers in the PPP Government, then it should be no great mystery as to why the hopes and aspirations of Guyanese have been treated so shabbily.  The big boys have big ambitions and bigger pockets, there is no space to accommodate the dismayed and disturbed.

Shattered hopes result, for they are lived and felt.  The many in Guyana who live with rejection by their leaders, and the dejection of their condition, must decide what action they take, where they want to go.  Hope is tomorrow.  Oftentimes, the kind of tomorrows promised never come.  I am the lowly messenger, my role over.

(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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• Bharrat Jagdeo, Guyana, Guyana Dream condition, Irfaan Ali, PPP Government

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