Living here again, a week doesn’t go by without someone asking what has struck me about life in Guyana compared to life outside. My first instinct is to say that perhaps I haven’t been back long enough to generate judgements, but even within a few months a couple of things have emerged.
In the first place, it’s rather obvious that a huge obstacle to our progress is our reliance on government from the socialism experiment that remains like a stain in Guyana. I wasn’t living here in those socialism years, so I can’t speak as to how those processes evolved in a social, or a business sense, but it appears that in that period we came to see government as the be all and end all for everything, and we have since become inordinately dependent on it. Perhaps it stems from the fact that, in that period, the government apparatus was indeed responsible for virtually everything in the economy, was the provider and the creator of everything in and around, and that therefore invisible but real walls came to be put in the way of the individual effort, be it commercial, social or artistic.
Whatever the reason, it appears that in those years we became imbued with the process and it has left us – to put it mildly – constrained. We expect government to provide and lead and support and generate and discipline and fund – that’s only an abbreviated list – and as a result a lot of the initiative has gone out of our people. Certainly many Guyanese work hard and apply themselves, but far too many seem to feel that “de guvment” will do it, whatever it is, instead of generating their own steam. Of course there are several examples of private sector success over the past 20 years or so, but to look at them is to see that a key factor, in almost every case, was the individual enterprise making a push on its own and not waiting for support to come down like manna from heaven.
It is particularly evident in the arts. There are some exceptions in the promotion field, but performers here generally are looking to government agencies instead of creating a marketable (that’s an important adjective) product on their own. Take Mashramani. In no other festival in the Caribbean region, or perhaps the world, does the government provide the funding for events that Mashramani does here. In Trinidad Carnival, Barbados CropOver, Cayman Islands Pirates week, and other like festivals, not one dollar goes to the operation of events; private sector runs all those activities, for their own profit, and all government does is schedule the events, provide security and services for them, and advertise them. The present attitude to Mash may stem from its origin as an establishment effort, but for it to grow and expand, more private initiative and private enterprise have to come on board. And this is true not just of Guyana; the lesson is world-wide. The purely socialist government-driven model has shot its bolt, but some of the residue from that time in this country continues to gum up the gears.
Secondly – and this is actually contained in the first point – we have also become a polarized people who rail at each other when we disagree. Vanda Radzik made a comment along those lines in a recent letter in the press, and she’s absolutely right. My knowledge of Guyanese is one of a people who could always talk plenty. (The academics say “loquacious”, but that’s what they mean.) However, in the process of all that chat, we used to be a people who could argue a point strongly – as a youngster crossing on the Vreed-en-Hoop ferry I witnessed some classic gaffs on the Querriman – but it would all end amicably, more or less. Nowadays, it seems we don’t seem able to disagree without becoming disagreeable.
One could attribute this cleavage to the political process where no party, or politician, will concede that the other side has any positive attributes or exponents, but I would argue this was always the case in our politics here. Of late, however, the attitude seems to have infected the common man as well, and we have become cantankerous and even mean-spirited in the process, as recent exchanges in the press have shown. There is a narrowness there that is shameful to see, particularly in some of our prominent people.
If you think about it, the disposition to consider different views simply as variations, and not necessarily opposition, is an indication of maturity. And if you consider maturity as a process of upward development, of getting better in our relations with others, then in this inclination now to rant at each other when views don’t coincide, we have actually gone backwards as a people.
Finally, in these kinds of discussions I always want to hear about the way forward, and while I’m not sure in this case, I think it has to start with our leaders – political; religious; economic; social; artistic – taking it upon themselves to begin to show tolerance for differing views. Notice I didn’t say “acceptance”. I’m not asking for the earth here. “Tolerance” will be a good first step. We can build on that.
Small example. Some time back in this column I wrote about a delightful experience watching cricket at Providence. In it, I generally praised the facility and the level of maintenance but pointed out that some vertical advertising banners were blocking the view of the game. The gentleman running the place could have been annoyed by my criticism, but when I did hear from him (it was Tony Xavier) his response was that he was grateful, he had taken the point and fixed the problem. I wouldn’t say I know Tony Xavier all that well, but it’s clear he has the kind of maturity I mean.
We have to stop seeing criticism as condemnation. We have to go back to being the Guyanese who would argue on the shop bridge at Hague on the point of fighting (I saw this a few times with my heart pounding in my chest) and the next day be sharing a mauby and probably a lot wiser for the earlier exchange. We must find that former maturity we had that allowed us to consider rather than confront; very often these days it’s the latter condition in play. That’s not how it’s supposed to go.
