Gloomy days are ahead for Guyana
Dear Editor,
Ever since we began writing letters, we have tried to give some sense of what we could discern ahead for Guyana in 2014 under this PPP regime. In so doing, notwithstanding how difficult things are for the poor and the working class in the country, we were always able to offer reasons for hope to the less fortunate in the most difficult times.
Today, as we try to look ahead, two things stand out. In the first place much of our future is impenetrable. The darkness is pervasive. This, in itself is not unexpected since we have a regime that is unfit to govern because of their lack of intellectual and moral faculty.
We have argued before that as things get progressively worse under this regime, it would become much more difficult for the poor and the working class to make ends meet or even simply to provide a future for their children.
Second, this cabal is drenched in corruption, greed, selfishness and evil as darkness has over taken them by leaps and bounds, hence the people and the country. People are frustrated to the point where their blood pressure in increasing. And there is a lurking danger because the people have reached the boiling point and there are no valves to open for the pressure to escape.
But as uncomfortable as it is to view the darkness ahead, contemplating the shadows cast by that future darkness into our present is infinitely more depressing. It is not that there are no signs pointing the way ahead; rather, it is that all the signs tell a tale of unrelieved doom and gloom for the people in which hope lies dying especially for the elderly, youths and the poor.
In terms of our politics it is certainly a case in which the PPP is unable to develop the economy, create jobs for the youths and those who want to work, reduce crime, corruption and nepotism, improve the lives of the poor, and respect the rights of the people. This regime led has succeeded in drastically reducing the practice of good government and accountability in this country into an unseemly orgy of greed, corruption and venality without conscience or limits. We believe that the prospects are that the excesses of the regime will only get worse as it strives desperately to win a majority in the next election. That gloomy perspective spells unmitigated disaster for the country and the poor and the working class who are currently living on their knees. The result is that in spite of talking about changes which have not taken place in the PPP in the last twelve years, the core of the party and its dominant ethos remain the same as they have always been. Its Stalinism-Leninism ideology is like a cult organization, without a national perspective, a human development strategy and thus the regime is incapable of delivering good government, reduce corruption and crime and improve the lives of the poor.
The entire prospect is so depressing that we are reduced to wishing with the poet that, “surely some revelation is at hand”. Except that if it is, we freely admit we lack the foresight to see it. But the problem posed by this corrupt, uncaring and dictatorial regime is a major part of the gloom and doom that lie ahead. Even greater fear stems from the contemplation of the prospects of crime, corruption, the economy and the society in which there is no security of the person.
The economy of Guyana is in shambles and only the perversely ignorant in the PPP would imagine that Guyana’s economy is splendid, unaffected by the economic implosion taking place around us. When we combine such gloomy prospects and we consider such developments in the context of the horrendous mismanagement, corruption and the raping of the treasury and of the country’s resources by the kleptocrats which has taken place over the years, the implications are frightening for the future. Only a peaceful revolution similar to the Arab Spring Revolution can save the youths, the elderly and the poor and the working class in Guyana from total disaster. The time is now.
Dr. Asquith Rose and Harish S. Singh
