Dear Editor,
For many years as a Guyana born citizen living abroad, I viewed my birthplace with both hope and concern. Having survived the trials of migration to the US, I always felt that despite being a US citizen, I had a place of refuge.
We fled the draconian oppression of the Burnham era. It was destructive to the nation on so many levels, but somehow is reinterpreted in an Orwellian fashion. But that was another era and we have moved forward. I’m not interested in reliving that time. Everyone who dealt with that hardship carries their own interpretation of what it meant to them and their family. What concerns me now is the path ahead.
Guyana cannot and should not go willingly back into the shackles of imperialism. If we sell out our God given natural resources for pennies we will never be able to uplift ourselves. We will become like our neighbour to the west, or like Guinea where the oil wealth does nothing to alleviate poverty. In our haste for development we are making poor choices. One oil spill and our fisheries, coast and agriculture will be destroyed for a generation. We don’t have the capacity for a refinery and that is where nations create jobs and money.
We welcome foreign investors who in Africa and Latin America have enriched themselves while decimating the local economies with economic apartheid.
My father, a brilliant mathematician and businessman once told me that if a business creates social stability but just breaks even then it’s is better for the greater good. The ignorance of this administration to wilfully destroy sugar in Guyana is a prime example. GuySuCo has been mismanaged and corrupt for decades; both sets of government and their poorly qualified political appointees are to blame. There is no moral authority for either of them to claim. One brought a useless factory which my father told them would not work, and the other is selling GuySuCo like bora in the market. Neither approach is beneficial to the nation.
As a true Guyanese, instilled with a genuine love of my country, I think everyone needs to take a step back. No race or government should act from vengeance or spite, because in the end we all share in the triumph or the destruction.
Living in America for almost forty years I’m never quite free of the burden of race. I carry it with me to the many places where I’m often the only woman of colour. In Guyana I just don’t feel it. I see the kindness and intelligence of all our people and feel truly equal.
Let us stop with the irrational exuberance of power. Let us rekindle kindness in a difficult world. But most importantly let us chose a path towards prosperity that leaves no one behind and ensures a secure future for all.
Yours faithfully,
Sabriya B Ishoof
