Dear Editor,
As if to demonstrate the accuracy of the viewpoint Mr. Tacuma Ogunseye cited in his letter captioned “A multi-racial front against the government is not possible”, (07.10.02) that “protest actions by African Guyanese produce an ethnic backlash” wherein Indians perceive it “as an African attempt to take over and they in turn become more supportive of the PPP/C”, Mr. Justin de Freitas’s rather puerile characterization as “motive envy” in his letter captioned “The campaign to discredit the government is failing” claims that government critics “hunger for political power”. His choice of phrases (“motive-envy” – a play on “penis-envy”, “they all get off”, “the swell of envy”, “engorged with hate”, “burst into”, “soaking up this ejaculate”, and so on) is somewhat disconcerting.
Mr. De Freitas’s views notwithstanding, and taking into account Mr. Ogunseye’s overall argument, I find it hard to believe that the Guyanese people of all races would be so indifferent and uncaring as to allow any segment of their population to be marginalized without coming together and registering a protest as one people. We certainly should, as Mr. Ogunseye rightly states, be conscious that dictatorship brings with it its own problems and always be prepared to resist its every attempt to trample our fundamental rights. Guyanese people know that to marginalize a significant segment of the society would be inimical to the survival and progress of the entire nation.
This alone should support the argument and boost the readiness of other racial groups to join with blacks in a multi-racial protest. This is the meaning of one people, one nation and one destiny. But if it still does not, and blacks do indeed have to go it alone, then so be it. It must still be done. For it is only the collective expressing and voicing of the awareness of their plight that can bring the need for change into exigency.
No doubt already in places such as Buxton because of police siege-like presence and ruthless pursuing of their quarries in the midst of residents trying to go about their daily lives, there may well exist a strong sense of impending obliteration and even annihilation. And the deliberate ignoring and minimizing by the government of incidents, such as the shooting of Donna Herod or the torturing of the two residents from there, only reinforces this fear among the community. The ensuing government attitude, callous comments, etc., projected no interest whatsoever in assuaging that community and disabusing them of their fears. This kind of hubristic “ignoring and delaying of issues by the powers”, as GHK Lall puts it, is in itself a communication to these communities and the nation at large that their fears are rooted in reality.
That events in Guyana have reached the limits of comprehension now generates the very kind of thinking that is frequently being expressed in SN by the many letter writers Mr. De Freitas writes about. These prescient and perspicacious scribes realize that a new reality must come about and in spite of appearing to be always negative they well may be the truly positive forces for change as they show that even in this air of destructiveness creativity is still possible. We know that change is imperative in one direction or the other. If the government succeeds in taking us to totalitarianism that is change. If we succeed in bringing Guyana back to the path of a free society, that too is change. Right now we are experiencing the ruthlessness on the part of the government that destroys any possibility of us finding meaning between all that has already occurred and what the future portends. As a result, we need and are indeed forced to adopt the survival at any cost thinking.
Instead of the government being the container in which we are shaped for their purposes, we now have to become the container of this government to keep it in check.
Subconsciously most Guyanese already know that change is needed. This knowledge is acted out in the form of the “groundswell” that G.H.K. Lall speaks of in his letter of October 2nd.
It is communicated in the “seething, burning anger that gnaws and erodes the texture of society” as he puts it. He identifies it rightly as “coming from a significant segment of the nation that truly believes that it is victimized, patronized, demonized.” This segment being for the most part unable to name its problem, as Lall has, can of course only act it out in the manner he describes, i.e., in the “vocabulary of occupants of the speeding, blaring, honking buses” the “body language” of the army, and that has even now surfaced in Buxton, Bareroot, etc.
Is it possible to transform this so called language into the level of the dialogue many concerned writers (Persaud, Wiggins, et al) call for or will it, coupled with the drugs violence and pestilences that Lall describes, only burst out in the form of social violence with no sublimation?
Yours faithfully,
Stafford Wills
