A weekend when the imagination died

I have been in political activism since I was sixteen. In this long journey of crusade, I have witnessed countless moments of piercing angst in the life of Guyana as dictatorship swallowed up the hopes, dreams, and expectations of the people of my country. Last week was a particularly cruel moment in the history of my praxis. Last week’s outrage destroyed imagination. It reminded me of the title Francis ***uyama gave to his seminal book after the collapse of world communism; “The End of History.” Last week in Guyana, we reached the end of imagination. Imagination could no longer conjure up visions, images and perceptions. Imagination died. This is a country where if it had a hundred million citizens, a large economy and post-industrial wealth, 20th century European fascism may have been reenacted. Sense and sensibility and freedom did not exist in Guyana last week. It was a barren land when time, freedom and reason collapsed into an ocean of despair. First, the amazing opposition parties have been invited to be part of an old circus that came to town in 2012 and died a cruel death soon after. The President has brought back to life the tripartite budget committee. Why the opposition would want to be part of a narrow process called budget talks and not governance dialogue defies logic. Why our incredible opposition parties would want to confabulate with the Government from July 2013 to budget time in March 2014 over the budget, rather than on governance, makes no sense. But then again, sense died last week. Sensibility went out the window when the dictatorship screamed at the budget cuts but regurgitated its 2012 bullyism. Last year, the budget of Region Four was chopped by the very crying government by seventy-five percent. Read again, not fifteen percent but seventy-five. This year the masquerade was more sickening. The Region Four budget was redrafted not by the elected Region Four chairman but the centrally-appointed officer, and the chairman did not know what was inside his own book of estimates. I have always argued since the historically unique 2011 election results that if the Executive does not recognize the electoral integrity in the Legislature’s existence, then the latter must withhold recognition of the Executive. Here now is an example where we have reached the end of imagination. The Executive denounced the curtailment of its 2013 estimates by the opposition, but that very central regime chopped off the head of the estimates of a local municipality that the citizens of Region Four voted for, including this columnist. Can anyone imagine a greater game of farce? Farce was not the word to use to describe our journey into the chasm of madness last week when the Guyana Energy Authority fired six employees over failed lie detector tests. The victims claimed that the questions were not related to their work environment. Let us assume that they are not telling the truth, then it still leaves the pressing question as to who framed the questions and what are the contents. If we accept the explanation of the dismissed employees that the inquiries were not work related then this country has gone further down a path that we must immediately try to stop. What were the answers that caused the employees to be dismissed? The Government must offer the opposition an explanation assuming that APNU and the AFC want a report. Is it possible those workers failed the polygraph because they were probed on issues that were personal and they did indeed not tell the truth? If they did, that was no other person’s business than their own. For example, “Do you know anyone in your life that once stole?” If you say no and the machine fires off a rejection, it means you lied. Was it that kind of situation these victimized workers found themselves in? One wonders what must be going through the minds of these victims. The opposition has a majority in Parliament but six public servants could be fired without just cause and the opposition will be meeting the President and his underlings for talks on the 2014 budget. Finally, last Thursday the shifting sands of deceit and deception of the rulers of this nation were laid bare. I was present at the Plaisance Community Centre ground when Minister Juan Edghill told the gathering that the e-governance tower cannot be erected at Sparendaam where the radio station transmitters once were because the site is the intended home of the CARICOM Secretary General. Last Thursday we were told that if put there it would be in the path of flights from Ogle airport. The contempt for this nation by its government is beyond imagination.