Dear Editor,
I hereby declare I belong to a vanishing minority represented by Ryhaan Shah in the February 25 SN, which is willing to openly disapprove of what Mashramani now portrays (‘Which party is willing to change the annual Republic Day parade?’). From the language of Guyana’s first peoples it was chosen to inspire a coming together to build something for the common good; and when sustained, to become a cooperative republic. But the national grand theft of the franchise of citizens to choose a government and the Declaration of Sophia of the one-party state finally killed that in the minds of any Guyanese the “small man becoming a real man.”
Mashramani moved from the original pageantry to also feature Mass Games, which sought to involve the schoolchildren in a big way, but they were still decently attired for the most part. The death of the maximum leader halted that enterprise. I thought I saw the cooperative spirit return with democracy for a while after 1992, especially with the mantra of no recriminations.
But those who controlled the reins of political power started to feel by the dawn of the millennium that they and only they knew what was best for us ignorant Guyanese still living in the country. They fell prey to the same capitalistic seduction that befell their erstwhile comrades in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; but there were no civilizational restraints left, after the 1980 Constitution, from a massively rigged 1978 referendum, removed such influences as were inherited from the British, who themselves took many years of barbarism to reach an arguably democratic benevolence towards citizens. Everything was for sale; it is now being discovered that the new political masters dealt with the land, resources, contracts and devices that made money to keep them and their minions in power; and encouraged the increasingly impoverished masses to participate not by sharing in any wealth put into the Consolidated Fund, but by selling their morals and decency. For they saw that religion, which used to be sadistically considered the opiate of the masses, was being replaced by consumerism and the glitter of virtual reality.
Granted that those over 18 have the adult privilege of doing as they please within the bounds of the present law, does this translate into training many (thankfully not yet all) children to wine in scanty clothing in public, as the Ministry of Education seems to be encouraging? I do not expect such views to be popular, for in my years of teaching I have cultivated creativity without noise, the antithesis of the “One Culture” the Ministry of Culture is attempting to popularise as the symbol of our unity. Some people seem to feel it is only one day a year we allow pageantry to turn into carnival (which latter word has ages ago lost its bad reputation). They choose to forget the weeks and even months of training that precede it and do more to form our national attitudes to work and achievement.
I already see that no party will change this, for even as Ms Shah suffered the noise up to 9 pm, those living in the vicinity of Congress Place, Sophia, had to endure the sounds of ‘music’ blaring until 4 am. While recognising a political marriage of convenience, I am disappointed that we will now be deprived of an updated estimate of the number of Guyanese fed up with both the PPP and the PNC.
Yours faithfully,
Alfred Bhulai
