A more than blue Christmas

Dec 25, 2025 Editorial, News

(Kaieteur News) – Hard hit Guyanese are forced to endure more than a Blue Christmas today. They are living with black-and-blue marks on this Christmas Day, like battered, shell-shocked victims of domestic violence. The violence is coming from the hands of those they elected to office, the same people who used them before, and now abuse them with a smile and a joke. How do we say Happy Christmas today to all Guyanese, when many are facing another grim day that lacks any cheer? The hoped-for goodwill of their leaders, what’s due to every citizen, has vanished in a cloud of meaningless words made worse by poorly disguised humor that hurts so much.

A Blue Christmas is one from song that laments loss and emptiness, the heartbreak of being alone, with no shoulder to lean on, no caring heart to partner. A black-and-blue Christmas is an added penalty, a burden that is intolerable to those who already have too much load to carry, are bent at the knees. The marks on Guyanese faces, the swollenness around their eyes, tell of their ordeals from the whiplashes of leaders who built them up with rosy promises, then served them a dish made of bitter vines and sharp nettles. This cannot be the fate of Guyanese on Christmas Day, or should it be for any other season, when this country is now renowned across the globe for its unending riches.

This has to be one of the biggest ironies in the world. On the one hand, Guyana is now a country that routinely makes exciting headlines in the most respected worldwide journals. On the other, there is the obscenity of many of its citizens on their hands and knees, and not being given a hand to get off the ground. Guyana can top the world in the category of some of the best indicators of a country that is rich, and not just by the way rich, but glitteringly rich. Then there is the crying shame of many of its citizens, who have no choice but to be content with their lot at the bottom of the Guyana barrel. Tell them how rich Guyana is, and their question is then why are they always hurting, always short of sustenance, always struggling to make it from one day to another? All too often, their challenge is how to make it from one meal to the next.

This should not be the case in a country that is ranked in the top ten of one global statistic or another, those that are highly regarded by experts and investors. In a country as rich with natural resources, such as an abundance of oil and gold, it is a crime for one Guyanese to be lost and hopeless, hungry and weeping, on Christmas Day. This has to be the height of leadership cruelty, where the bulk of the wealth is shared among the circle of fat cats, while the vast square of ordinary citizens, who need help the most, is dismissed to the life of a street dog.

Too many Guyanese are in pain on this Christmas Day, and they have black-and-blue marks to show. The bills they owe, and cannot pay, don’t know how they will. The quantity and quality of nutritional foods they need (need, not want) but have no idea how they will ever get enough of either. The children without a Christmas gift, while their friends have something, and this has been their pain, and the humiliation of their parents, year after year in an oil rich country. There is no doubt that Guyana is rich, but rich for which segment of Guyanese? When the riches goes to a chosen few, then it is inevitable that the many will be forced to fight and scrounge among themselves for the crumbs and scraps that are sometimes thrown in their direction.

On this Christmas Day, there will be Guyanese feasting on lobster, choice cuts, champagne. Separately, there’s that large part of Guyana left to count their rice grains, bread crumbs. It’s a blue Christmas and a bleak Christmas for the masses in this rich oil state. Some have a Merry Christmas. Numerous Guyanese deal with one that horrifies.

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