We have an ideal opportunity to transcend politics and race

Dear Editor,

As we enter the New Year, I am excited and am very hopeful about the prospects for Guyana. No doubt we have many challenges but we also have many opportunities. If China and India ranking at number one and two respectively, with the largest populations in the world ‒ over 1.3 billion people in each country ‒ are finding solutions to their problems, then surely, we can solve our problems with our 746,955 population.

I am excited because never before have we had so many persons with graduate and post-graduate qualifications (degrees, masters degrees and PhD’s) and technical and vocational skills available to this country from within and outside of Guyana; we must use this body of knowledge for the development of the country. Further, as one reflects on our approach to solving problems over the years, one realizes that we have not truly tapped into the knowledge available to us, that is, outside of politics and race.

In 2017, it is unacceptable for us to continue to invest in our people and our children ‒ in some cases they attend some of the best universities and educational institutions in the world ‒ only to return to Guyana and reduce their intellectual ability to the service of a political party instead of service to the country. With the body of knowledge available to us, we should have been in a much better position.

I am excited because if there is a generation that I am depending on to change the mindset, shift the paradigms and develop a new frame of reference through which we must process our successes, problems, issues, solutions and development as a whole, it is this generation.

For the past 50 years we have been doing the same things that caused the problems to try to solve our problems – politics and race. I am excited because we now have an ideal opportunity to transcend as a country beyond Africans and Indians, beyond PNC and PPP and use our knowledge and experience to build a Guyana that will become the Singapore of South America, which will lead strongly, nationally, regionally and internationally.

Albert Einstein once said, “It is not that I am smart, but I just stick with the problem longer.” For those of us who have stuck with this problem long enough, let us be bold enough, wise enough, smart enough, to move this country beyond the partisan politics and the fear of each other, and build a Guyana that’s united and free. May 2017 be the year when we will truly change the course of this country.

A blessed 2017 to my Guyanese brothers and sisters! I know that we are a people with tremendous resolve, love for country and love for each other.

Yours faithfully,

Audreyanna Thomas