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Contemptuous and degrading
(Kaieteur News) – We call upon President Irfaan Ali to come out and register his disapproval. Guyana is not a playground, a place to be made into a football to be kicked around. Guyana is not a playground, someone’s idea of a good time and a deluge of fast dollars. Guyana is not a playground, but a place that is open for business on its terms, so that its own people can live at a standard, know what it is to be owners of a great patrimony. Guyana is a place where foreigners can come and delight at more than the network of new roads. They can come and checkout the investment possibilities, be assured of higher-than-normal returns on their invested capital. But Guyana is not, and should never be seen as, a playground.
The wealth is of little use to Guyana when it stays untapped under the ground, or unpumped from the depths of the sea. Investors have a place in Guyana, and the red carpet of welcome has been rolled out for investors from all over the world. We are not satisfied that the returns that are due to Guyanese for their riches have been forthcoming. If so, and government failures aside, then why does Guyana have to be withdrawing so much from its Natural Resource Fund, and go around to banks in the Middle East and China to borrow millions upon millions of US Dollars? Guyanese are not getting a fair share on their oil, a terrible deal it is, and now they are getting insult added to injury with their home described as a playground. A playground is a place where men and women tramp all over, from end to end, and leave it in a dreadful state. But that is how Guyana is now seen in the eyes of those who have done nicely for themselves. Those now extending the favor by ringing a bell of invitation to summon others to the rich possibilities here.
Which Guyanese living in the city or in any country village feels good when someone can be so condescending as to call their home a playground? A playground does have its positives, especially when thought of along the lines of the Roman’s vision of what it is to be healthy -mens sana in corpore sano, which is translated as a sound mind in a sound body. Such a meaning calls to mind exciting and hard-fought duels on playgrounds from the tender years and up. But there is an uglier meaning to playground, which is where anything goes, beginning with orgies of one kind and continuing to debaucheries of all kinds. Foreign investors have millions to spend, and with that kind of money in a country as socially poor as Guyana, then those millions can buy more than a slice of Guyana’s patrimony, either as direct investors, or as part of the growing cohort of supply chain vendors.
Guyana sold to a listening and interested world as a playground, when considered from a patriotic point of view, can only be interpreted in a less than wholesome light. What is a playground, if not to include those corners where flesh is peddled? What is a playground, especially when those coming in to sample the local wares have millions at their fingertips for business, and then some leftover for other business, personal business? There is the business of gambling, which has already unleashed a series of unintended consequences. There is the business of alcoholic consumption, which is already such a cultural and national scourge. There is the business that is growing out of sight and unmentioned alongside alcohol. It is one that needs no introduction, viz-a-viz, the lucrative business of hard drugs, such as the sale and consumption of cocaine, designer drugs, and opioids, which have already inflicted some damage on young and old Guyanese, only the full extent of which is still not known.
Guyana as a playground sounds closer to Robert Guccione’s Penthouse lifestyle, and which is the last thing that this country needs. There can never be any appreciation in genuine Guyanese, when their country tumbles from crown jewel to a playground to be overrun. President Ali’s pride should lead him to object.
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