The New Empire: When the Once Colonized Now Colonize Their Own

Dec 20, 2025 Letters

Dear Editor,

In Guyana today, we are witnessing the birth of a new empire — not one ruled by foreign crowns and colonial banners, but by local elites who have mastered the old imperial playbook. Our new rulers speak of development, progress, and prosperity, but the nation they are building looks eerily like the one we thought we dismantled decades ago: extractive, unequal, and profoundly elitist.

History, it seems, does not disappear — it only changes its skin-colour and lingo. Where once domination came through imperial decree, it now operates through state contracts, patronage networks, and selective access to opportunity. Economic power is concentrated in the hands of a small political-business class who govern not through inclusion, but through control — control of information, control of wealth, and control of who belongs. The names and faces have changed, but the logic of exclusion remains.

The resource boom promised transformation. What it delivered is entrenchment. A narrow circle of politically connected elites now reap extraordinary profits from the country’s resources, while ordinary Guyanese watch prices rise and opportunities vanish. The new “fancy people” — a term proudly flaunted at high-society galas and glittering all-white affairs — symbolize an economy designed to reward proximity to power rather than merit or service. And the chasm between those who dine under chandeliers and those who scrape the barrel to feed their families grows wider by the day.

In a resource-rich nation, persistent poverty is not a coincidence — it is a policy construct. It is the deliberate result of governance that thrives on dependency, insecurity, and distraction. When the population is kept economically desperate and politically divided, authority faces little resistance. That is not leadership; that is psychological warfare — dressed up as patriotism, development, and stability.

What is even more disturbing is how normalized this culture of entitlement and impunity has become. We now see elected officials credibly accused of predatory and exploitative behaviour continue to occupy public office, shielded by partisan loyalty and silence. Meanwhile, countless capable, conscientious citizens remain sidelined, reduced to spectators in their own democracy. This is not accidental. It is strategic.

When integrity threatens the system, mediocrity becomes a survival skill.

The empire no longer wears red coats, instead re-emerging in red shirts, standing tall — rebranded, localized, and celebrated by those who have learned to profit from the old machinery of domination. The new masters do not need to conquer; they only need to convince us that nothing can change. But that is precisely what must be challenged.

If independence meant anything, it meant rejecting not only foreign rule but the mindset that made it possible — a belief that some lives, voices, and dreams matter more than others. We are fooling ourselves if we think sovereignty built on social exclusion, economic inequality, and moral decay is anything more than a flag in borrowed winds.

The time has come to think beyond the politics of personality and partisanship. This is not about which party holds power; it is about how power holds us. Accountability, equity, and dignity are not luxuries — they are the bare minimum of a society that refuses to be colonized again, especially by its own.

Guyana’s wealth belongs to its people, not to its gatekeepers. If we continue to treat exploitation as vision and injustice as inevitability, we will prove that the empire never died — it simply changed its skin colour and resides amongst us now.

Yours truly,
Hemdutt Kumar

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