The governors

May 29, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – In Guyana, and we suspect for most of the former colonies of the various European empires that gained independence by the middle of the last century, the departure of the erstwhile masters has mostly meant their replacement by locals of a darker hue.

The earlier euphoric talk of a new egalitarianism replacing the rigid hierarchical structures of colonial rule seems to have petered out under the harsh reality of the new occupants revelling even more ostentatiously in the perquisites of power. They are the new “Big Ones”.

Take, for instance, the aloofness practiced by the old governors that was cultivated to encourage the sense of mystique that propped up their rule. Have you tried recently to get in touch with any of your representatives – at whatever levels?

Good luck. As soon as these individuals become ensconced in their new positions – whether by election or by selection – they become unreachable. It would appear that they disappear into a black hole, from which as we learnt in school, signals may enter but can never exit. They are lost forever – probably to loiter forever in another dimension. If you – the ordinary citizen that is – try getting them on their phones, their secretaries (God forbid that you thought the new Big Ones would answer their own phones) insist they are always “unavailable”.

They are at “meetings” – with the implication of being bogged down with making weighty national decisions or “out” – presumably working diligently to fix the broken national infrastructure. It is obvious that the standing orders are that no calls are ever to be put through – excepting, of course, if they are from another Bug One. And don’t try reaching them on the now ubiquitous cell phones that promised nonstop connectivity – the black hole factor kicks in and the electromagnetic signal never escapes. If you are from the old school that still believes in writing letters, don’t hold your breath to even expect an acknowledgement.

In the old days, the long-suffering subjects in need of some official intervention to remove some state impediment to their livelihood, might lie in wait for a bureaucrat to pass on his way to some function or other and make his petition. Not anymore.

The new Big Ones move around in SUV’s so heavily tinted that gamma rays could not penetrate much less the sight of a poor peasant. Emphasising the inaccessibility of the Big Ones as they traverse the land, police outriders with sirens wailing ensure that all and sundry get out of the way. As the citizens pick themselves off the grass into which they plunged to escape bodily dismemberment, they are supposed to be thankful because their representatives were dashing furiously to prevent another catastrophe from smiting the land.

It would appear, however, that at some level, there is an awareness of the discrepancy between the rhetoric and the reality of communications between governors and governed in our fair land. And so we have the new institution of the “Cabinet Outreach” being created. Once a year, for one week, the President gathers his Cabinet of twenty-odd Big Ones and makes a foray into the countryside to mix and mingle with the great unwashed masses. Of course, there was the precedence of Mr. Burnham with his “meet the people tours” of the sixties and even before him the Governor would have granted “audiences” to petitioners whenever he made his occasional tour of the Queen’s domain. As usual, after this year’s Cabinet Outreach there have been cries of this or that community being ignored or bypassed. And just as usual, there is the riposte that there are only so many communities that can be touched in the allocated time. What seems to have escaped most is why in a country of less than 800,000 – and only about half of them being adults–ninety percent of them packed in an area of less than 200 square miles along a single main road, one needs a special outreach week by the big ones to meet their constituents. Exactly what were they occupied with during the rest of the year?

Editorial, European, Governors, hierarchical, replacement

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The governors

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