Another Arrival Day

May 06, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – We arrived, but it is only at a spot on the map, a space in a physical place somewhere in this sprawling, scorching Tropics. For arrival means that there is readiness to move, to launch, oneself beyond the original place touched after that long oceanic emancipation. Similarly, Emancipation is not merely a release from physical restraint, it is the mentality that liberty is so free flowing as not to have any limits. Yet here we are still stuck in this irony of having arrived, of being emancipated, but still helpless trapped in self-made dungeons now almost escape-proof.

Definitely, there is a history to what is encircled by this remembrance of a day overflowing with meaning from long years ago. It is a story worthy of telling and retelling of the great journey made, and of the thrilling picking up of selves by the bootstraps to lift up from the bottom, to rise to heights unexpected, but always to those areas which bring greater responsibilities.

Like Emancipation, Arrival has to serve as the launching pad for venturing into the unknown, but possibly possessing some different promise. It is of what makes for a truly successful presence, a healthy environment, in a new place troubled by countless anxieties, the listlessness of a society that has so much, offers so much more to all. We (the arrived and emancipated, as joined at the hip) are too much in love with ourselves to appreciate that are still more sacrifices to be made, more journeys to be undertaken. These do not involve vessels and physical travels, but of a spiritual state that leads to unselfishness and wisdoms long so elusive.

So much gained, yet so much more still to be gained.

In a plural society, this is beyond the ugliness that has tainted us, taunts us, and reminds us that as much as we may believe we have arrived and moved on and up, we have not progressed by too many centimetres. Emancipation has done the same to us: set us free from harsh bonds and narrow boundaries, still there is so much liberty to be tasted. This is not even touched because we condemn ourselves into the limits of corners out of which we can’t seem to find our way.

In fact, with reflection and evaluation on the real state of Guyana, in the sum of its many different peoples and the self-sustaining injuries they continuously nurse, we know what is best, but are contented with where we are. For these reasons, and others left alone on this day filled with so much grace, it is how we refuse in our stubbornness, despite our dreadful unhealing sores, to try the bona fide medicines, those with some hope of a lasting cure.

In terms that all can understand today, regardless of whether they came in open boats, or those with chains and whips as inseparable parts of their journey of misery, an old world with a lot of the familiar was left behind. It was to see and experience all that a hoped-for new world would bring, could offer. Much was given up, ties were ruptured, so that more can be had, and as impossible as such a dream may have seen or been to others, it was embarked upon, braved. Yet what must be dared today with measured temperament and courageous vision, if not spirit, we shrink from, because we have arrived, and that is all there is to it. We have been emancipated from the horrible past, and it is all the freedom that we wish to know, that we can conjure.

This is the contradiction of Guyana, be it today in May, or another early day in August.

The full sum of our national success will only be harvested when we embrace the totality of the odds overcome before, the duty that the places we occupy today place before us. We know of caste, and we have been hurt by tribe, but neither was allowed to get the better of us. True Arrival, real Emancipation, will only come and flourish, when we revisit the strengths of our history, so that we can take the first baby steps to remake our future.

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