Dear Editor,
After many years away from Guyana, returning three weeks ago was a jarring experience. Nothing could have prepared me for the sight that unfolded: old rotting buildings with vines growing on them, abandoned old buildings, old broken buildings with persons living in them gleaned from the presence of window blinds and clothes hanging to dry, and old buildings that aged gracefully, but suffering from the want of care. Then there were half finished foundations abandoned with overgrown vegetation, three quarters finished buildings visibly occupied – you get the picture. No! I am not describing an abandoned town. Interspersed amongst these buildings were an array of “normal” buildings, extravagant buildings, shockingly extravagant buildings, extremely “out-of-place” opulent buildings, and then “commercial” buildings of glass and steel that were grotesquely disproportionate to the buildings they dwarfed in the savage environment.
As I traveled around to Linden, Mahaica, Buxton, Den Amstel, Mocha, Vreed-en-Hoop, Sophia, Kitty, New-ton, Campbellville – the scenery remained the same – obscene poverty amidst even more obscene riches. What economic base created this enormous superstructure that glorified the rich and mocked the poor and downtrodden? This was Charles Dickens “A Tale of Two Cities”, with the opening lines, ”It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair”. Perhaps Gulliver consuming the hundreds of tiny plates of morsel of the Lilliputians gives a glimpse of the PPP/Cs gulping down the oil money that belongs to the small men and women of this nation. Even more telling is Gulliver’s urinating on a fire and winning the gratitude of the Lilliputians, similar to the PPP/Cs channeling of oil money on infrastructure projects that serve as pipeline to funnel oil money into the pockets of those in charge, as the masses are grateful for the drippings, or droppings, or crumbs from the master’s table.
Meanwhile, the airwaves are poisoned with the filthiest language, violence, and open threats, reducing Guyana to a “gutter nation.”. State lands are being sold off to real estate developers who, quite literally, make a killing. A lack of an adequate water supply system, a woeful transportation system that endangers the lives of passengers and pedestrians alike, and a failed electrical power system in an oil rich economy indicates Guyana is failing to provide the basic necessities for human existence. The World Bank report that almost half of Guyana lives on $G1,100 a day. This grim statistic manifests itself in everything described above. The fact that the African-Guyanese masses are employed in the low wage sectors of the economy means that they are living a sub-human existence. With this backdrop the elections of September 1 can only be seen as Liberation Day for them. This is one election that they cannot even think about losing!