Coping with the crisis

Guyanese would be hard pressed to accept that the Guyana some politicians speak of is the same country that the rest of the population know and experience on a daily basis.

These high government officials are on a mission to convince us poor mortals that we are living in a utopia of their making instead of daily sinking deeper into a morass of hopelessness – again of their making.
Regardless of how much some sections of society would wish to ignore their condition, the reality is that the people in this country are in a crises of survival.  The unemployment situation does not make things any easier, and therefore each day the Guyanese people are into ingenious legal and illegal methods of coping with their life condition.
Depending on one’s perspective an examination of some of the resourceful ways employed by some people may unearth some mundane or even eye-opening strategies.  Depressed economic circumstances have forced families to compromise on the quality of their meals, and in many instances, forego at least one meal daily.
Although unemployment figures are unknown, the fact remains that unlike their counterparts in other countries, Guyanese do not have the luxury of turning to other jobs or even entering into some informal arrangement to garner the necessary additional income to survive at any appreciable level above the poverty line.
Since independence one surefire way of escaping the socio-economic privation occasioned by bad policies and hardnosed ideologies has been outward migration.  Examples are legion about the places where our countrymen can be found giving yeoman service to their adopted homeland.
And they seem quite happy despite expressing some nostalgia about the land of their birth which the truth be told, is not enough of a pull factor to ensure their remigration.
The Ministries of Education, and Human Services and Social Security have their hands full addressing reported and unreported cases of truancy and parents’ deliberate decision to not send their children to school.
No one seems inclined to come to grips with the possibility that such actions are one way of coping with the circumstances people have been forced to accept as their lot.  The front page picture of Kaieteur News of Friday July 25 last is enough to make one weep.  Readers are shown a structure on the Lusignan Railway Embankment which is home to over 20 human beings.
Maybe someone will be telling us that the relevant ministries’ officials were unaware that such a monstrosity existed.  The sad fact is that that photograph represents what is normal in other areas across the country.
No one should be surprised if suddenly corporate Guyana gets an attack of conscience and descends en masse in some public relations blitz.  It goes without saying that East Coast Demerara residents have been looking at that picture for a long time and probably in some perverse way may have gloated at the obvious misfortune of their fellow man.  Why else would it have taken so long for this example of social neglect to be highlighted?
But even for the employed, the low income that people are expected to accept as a living wage is in itself a stress factor.  It is no wonder that many people show signs of severe anxiety and even trauma resulting from an inability to provide adequately for their family and honour their financial obligations.
The ready availability of hire purchase agreements touted by annoying letters of solicitation certainly adds to an illusion of affordability; the reality is quite different just ask those who can still be embarrassed by the Agro Siezeman turning up at their door to repossess a item.
The dogmatic insistence by the government to maintain the 16 per cent value added tax is enough to drive persons to extreme thoughts.  Maybe it is time that the authorities reexamine the reasons why people seem bent on making this country the suicide capital of the region.
Arguments about the relationship between crime and economic circumstance do not impress families in crisis trying to surviving under the threat of chronic malnutrition, unacceptable public health care standards, and high levels of stress.
These only serve to aggravate an already perilous situation and lend themselves to anti-social behaviors to the discomfort of everyone.