Residue from the hard times

20131020dave martinsIn recent days, I made a brief appearance in Orlando hosting a Caribbean American Passport Connection (CAPC) function honouring Guyanese immigrants who had made important contributions to Florida.  In the course of the evening I mentioned that the success of those individuals in America was owed in large part to their qualities of ambition and dedication – attributes they had brought with them from their homeland.

A few days following that function, in a conversation with a young businessman here, I was hearing of his dismay at Guyanese reluctance to adapt to new changes (paying bills online, for example) – a point which was raised in several letters to the press, in one of which the writer saw the problem as stemming from an “inferiority complex” among our people. Reflecting on those two situations, I am suggesting they may be linked.

We can debate whether the term “inferiority complex” is an exaggeration, but