Take off the blinkers of race hate

DEAR EDITOR, “There are none so blind as those who would not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know” (John Heywood).  The present administration has been in office for more than twenty-two years!  Twenty-two years!!! That is more than the lifetime of many of our youths. As parents we want the best for our children.  We hope and pray that they will turn out right and that their lives would be meaningful.  However, this is a complicated world, and greed has complicated it even more.  Greedy people use simple and vulnerable people to fulfill their lust for power and money. Sad to say, this is the situation in Guyana. A few parasites have grabbed as much as they can from the system for their personal benefit, and have made themselves pretty well-off from the hard work and contributions of the poor.  Extremism is born of such behaviour. We only need to look at Syria, Libya and Iraq, for example. Do we want our children and grandchildren to inherit a legacy of extreme behaviour – extreme thieving, extreme intolerance to others’ views, extreme cronyism, extreme propaganda that will not end on elections day, but will further divide our country in the days after elections? Extremism will not stop at the opulent lifestyles that have come at the expense of the poor; extremism will develop among the less fortunate if we continue along the path we are on presently.  Is that what we wish for our country? Extreme behaviour came to the forefront recently when Mr. Courtney Crum-Ewing was gunned down for his views, perhaps by a vulnerable person; someone who had become extreme and extremely attached to receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars every month for having no skills except the ability to demonstrate the behaviour of a thug; money which people with genuine skills do not get for working in this country.  This type of extreme behaviour has run down our institutions. Legitimate development and run-down institutions do not go together.  They do not serve our interests. Run-down institutions foster corrupt practices and enable the dishonest to thrive. Public health care suffers, education suffers, security suffers, and other services suffer – all the services that the ordinary person has to rely on, become sub-standard. This degradation that is taking place provides an environment for more extreme behaviour. Our children who see us as hypocrites and wimps, abuse themselves and substances; and there is no meaningful national institution that helps them when they become ill. Not surprisingly, they may commit suicide, as borne out in our high rate of suicide in Guyana. Delusional people are numbing their feelings with alcohol and other drugs in order not to face reality.  Some pedestrians walk as if their life means nothing to them, seeming to suggest that they would rather someone ended it for them.  Reckless drivers behave as if they have a death wish on the roads. I guess that is the happiness that I was recently reading about; the happiness of the insane; the happiness that I understand we are so full of in Guyana; the happiness that makes me wonder: where am I?  We must be a very faith-filled people to be happy with what we have been offered as governance in this country; the atrocities of those who should set a good example, especially for the youths who will be leaders one day.  Perhaps because of our delusional state we are happy nevertheless, like a lunatic who walks around grinning from ear to ear, because in his world everything is just fine with him; or the fanatically religious who believe that God will help us, without our helping ourselves. It does not make me happy to see that qualifications and experience are less valued than incompetence, lack of integrity and the related capacity to be manipulated. I am not happy to see thugs and murderers thriving in this society.  I am not happy to see roads being built at great expense and are in a state of disrepair soon after. I am not happy to see that some roads are done because of who is living in certain areas, while other roads are left in disrepair because they may not bring in enough votes.  I am not happy to have the everyday experience with ‘happy go lucky’ drivers on the road exhibiting their ignorance and putting us all at risk, as they hustle a living to pay for the car or the house, which incidentally, does not belong to them until all that they owe is repaid plus interest to the bank. The reality is that one can get a house lot, but one has to have a job that pays properly so one can get and pay that mortgage to the end of its life, or the bank that owns the house will take it away.  Similarly, the loan on the car has to be repaid or the car goes to the lender when the payments are not made.  Have you seen the many notices from some of the car dealers? I am not happy about actions that enrich a few and leave the majority of us poorer.  I am not happy to see no real plans for the elderly who worked tirelessly in this country and to see all they built not mentioned and to see some of us, in an effort to preserve our ability to raid the treasury, operating like ostriches, being afraid to mention politically incorrect persons’ contributions when making public speeches. Shame on you!!! I am not happy that we have utility services that are not functioning at all well and we still have to pay a lot for them.  There is no one to help us! Of course those of us who are raiding the treasury are indeed happy, in a delusional way.  So let us continue our happiness for as long as it will last.  All good things come to an end someday. Time has shown that. On Election Day please let us come out of the wilderness of race hate, and let our eyes open for Guyana, not our race, so that we can have a chance to build this country for all of us, and not have to think about America and other countries as the refuge for ourselves and our families. If things were so good why are so many of us seeking refuge in other countries?   We should stay here and enjoy all the ‘happiness’. Is this what we want for our children?  Can we really believe that our children will have a bright future with this state of affairs?  People, please wake from your slumber and decide on a better future for your children. It is truly amazing how greedy politicians can whip up a diet of race and race hate for the ignorant and the uneducated.  Don’t let them manipulate you with it. Let us not vote for thugs to continue to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars a month for behaving badly in public; for breaking laws with impunity, for providing deficient services.  Let us say to the politicians who would divide us to win an election, NO!! NO!! NO!! Take off the blinkers people and vote on issues for the sake of our children and don’t help the greedy to continue to raid the treasury with their really super salaries and benefits which leave us worse off; as much as Fifteen Thousand United States dollars ($3 Million Guyana dollars) per month for providing (non-)services that frustrate us, damage our equipment, are irregularly supplied, etc. People who provide the skills have to work under such persons for a fraction of those persons’ salaries.   No wonder we are short of skilled people to make the services work well! Wake up Guyana. Let your voices be heard, as Courtney Crum-Ewing’s voice, which instead of being silenced, is being heard now even louder. Rosemarie Terborg Davis