We speak about one nation in Guyana; we refer to it that way in our motto and some of us quote the motto as proof of our oneness. The harsh truth is that we have the potential to be one nation, but as of now we are not there. There may have been intimations along those lines in the early days before independence, but with the arrival of the possibility of power, ruling power, coming into play, we divided along the two major ethnic lines, and we have stayed that way; we don’t have a magnet of any kind pulling us back together. Consequently, the greatest gift we could give ourselves in our 50th anniversary celebration is to commit our energies going forward to developing in the Guyanese ethos a body of knowledge, an awareness of the entity called Guyana, that could then be the magnet drawing us to be truly one nation, overcoming our current cultural inclination to divide.
That one entity can only come if we introduce our young people, starting in our homes and in our schools, to the information of what is special and powerful and unique and memorable about Guyana. It must become an automatic part of growing up in Guyana; that you understand there is a wider, greater good than your personal ethnic good. Obviously it will not happen overnight; generations will have to pass; but unless we engage the process now, all of us, all successive governments, decades later, will still find us struggling to overcome the problems that not only come from our division but feed on it. President Granger is right about that amalgamation we urgently need; without it, we will never know our full potential.
All the talk about “nation building” and “one people” will remain just talk until we take the fundamental step of understanding the overarching value to all of us that Guyana has. We must begin to feed this awareness, through our governmental reaches and
