Distrust is learned through betrayal

TRUST is instinctive from the birth of a child, but distrust is inherited through betrayal. A child would try to grab at flames because of attraction to the colours, but it learns to fear those very beautifully flickering sparks when it gets burnt.

Adults become distrustful of their fellow humans and situations as a consequence of betrayals, moreso, betrayal that recurs – maybe several times. Eventually that distrust becomes endemic to the psyche, even to the point of paranoia. That phenomenon is a protective mechanism meant to shield the emotions and self against further pain from betrayal by fellow humans – much as a householder would put stronger locks on a door that has been kicked open by bandits, because the invasion and violation – of the emotions through betrayal, and of the mind through engendering fear of betrayal and home invasion; because both elicit distrust and necessitate requisite protective and coping mechanisms in efforts to prevent further violation of trust or home.
Leaders are placed in positions of strength and power by electorates – either within groupings or organisations, or in states or countries, through trust garnered by promises of honest endeavours toward the common good; and when that trust built on expectations and faith is eroded then it is difficult – sometimes impossible, to re-generate; and many times it creates acrimonious feelings which degenerate to aberrant behaviour.
The PPP/C Government has been oftentimes betrayed by its own leadership cadre, many of whom became greedy and power-drunk from elevation to high positions – positions in which they have been placed to identify and address the needs of the citizens of the country; but which they abuse instead to garner personal wealth and enhancement of the welfare of selected members of a community, or even – especially friends and family members, to the detriment of trust-engendering relationships between citizenry and Government, which has many times created divisions for anti-developmental and unpatriotic elements of the Opposition to crawl into and find a niche through which they inject their poisonous rhetoric to subtly influence the betrayed and conflicted, to become dissident voices raised against the very Government.

This has been happening in the rice and sugar industries, as well as to individuals and maybe even entire communities.
The protest by rice farmers in the Essequibo, which became violent when a drunken AFC Councillor proceeded to block the road and engage in several illegal acts, would not and should not have occurred, except that for years, despite amendments to the Constitution to enable protection from exploitation, rice farmers – hard-working and committed to tilling the soil, have been exploited and robbed by millers and exporters.
Thus it was that the AFC Councilor, Naith Ram, even though ‘drunk’ at the time, could find a niche in the frustration and dissatisfaction of the rice farmers, who feel betrayed through the lack of enforcement of extant laws to protect them and restore their rights from exploitative situations and persons.
The normally peaceful rice farmers were led to believe the false promises of people who have nothing to offer them but false promises and much grief into aberrant behaviour alien to their nature because the destructive and amoral and proven immoral AFC councillor, who had been guided by the destructive, anti-national, anti-developmental, unpatriotic leadership of his party which has joined with the PNC/APNU to sow destruction and grief all over Guyana, had found a niche in the lack of trust of the rice farmers in a Government that they perceive has failed to protect them by enforcing the laws that could protect them from exploitation and consequential degeneration of their income and lifestyle.

People who feel their leaders have abandoned, neglected or betrayed them would no longer trust those leaders, and it is imperative that the core leaders of the PPP return to the people who provide the wind beneath their wings for their flight and fight to sustain what Father of the Nation, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, fought lifelong for, and what President Donald Ramotar is fighting for now – the peace, progress and prosperity of a united nation. The time is now, and the people’s patience is ebbing with the tide of distrust and frustration.