Dear Editor,
Driving down the East Coast the other evening and seeing people walking on the seawall silhouetted by the setting sun, I felt an overwhelming nostalgia for simpler times.
But strangely it was as if I had projected myself into the future and was remembering the present as some past idyll before the advent of oil.
I felt sad, imagining the loss of all things Guyanese: the sense of family, a unique community subsumed by commercialism in the forms of high rises, franchises and flash cars. A sleepy town turned into an impersonal oil city, helicopters churning overhead.
I’m sure many in the middle class and elite of Guyana share this anxiety about our country, our future and about our place in this new order – of our influence. Of our relevance.
One hears a lot of debate centred on whether oil and the substantial funds that will flow, will be a blessing or a curse to Guyana. But it is not about the oil stuck in the earth for millions of years -this strange liquid that powers the world.
In the end it is about how, as Guyanese, we react to this new and potentially transformational development. And this is where ancient insecurities about our worth as a people are now bubbling to the surface. Centuries of being literally and metaphorically beaten down, of being told even by our fellow Caribbean people of our worthlessness, have taken a heavy toll. So we appear now at this crucial moment to be doubting our belief in ourselves to now rise to the challenge of having real wealth and of our ability to use it for the good of all our people.
While it might be hard in the short term for Guyanese as a whole to overcome our history and have the collective transformation we need, it is encouraging to see so many young people positioning themselves for the boundless opportunities that the advent of oil wealth will bring. Finally I would urge everyone to take a calmer, more balanced and hopeful view of the future. We finally hold our destiny in our hands.
Yours faithfully,
Albert Russell
