Dear Editor,
I keep hearing of Constitution, democracy, and governance. All wonderful things when held sacredly, followed honestly, and lived seriously. Almost everybody out there exude a special glow when they speak of these vital foundation cornerstones to national ambience and progress. They dig a deep hole beneath the seabed and pretend that they can happen here with what we long practiced and embraced. I ask: How?
First, I search for ethnic census specifics that are not hard, final figures of Guyana. I encounter a cross between a shallow mystery and a thoughtful secret; shallow because there are some clues as to the vicinity of the number; and thoughtful, because it may be considered not in the best interests of national wellbeing.
I am comfortable, however, to offer these approximations: 40 per cent Indians; 30 per cent Africans; 20 per cent indigenous; the remaining 10 per cent mixed or other, in whatever blends they represent, identify with, and actually are. Gentle reminder: approximations only with allowances for plus or minus low single-digit percentage points. In soft fractions: around two-fifths Indo-Guyanese and about a third Afro-Guyanese, and another one-fifth indigenous.
Using those numbers as context, I submit the following (all of which should be familiar). In view of the terrible resentments now ingrained in the ethnic blocs – the two major ones – this means at any one time, some 40 per cent or 30 per cent of the population is immovably against the other. In the harshest of terms, and all the time, one sizable and influential segment distrusts, disowns, distances from, and degrades the other. For the climbing of the one is seen, interpreted, and held, as the declining of the other. But men from one side or the other, stand with jaw locked firmly in place and blow loud platitudes about governance over the whole progressively; about running effectively this place that is so wretched in its bitter, toxic wounds; and about somehow influencing and making the parts grinding and wearing down the national machinery work together. I ask: How? By whom? When? To what acceptable degree? And with what result pointing to what reality?
But it is this falsehood and hypocrisy and utter farce and folly in which we persist. We – learned and wise men, prejudiced and sometimes profound pundits, unthinking and uncaring masses, and cunning and barbarous political classes – speak with clear head and straight face about democracy and unity and harmony. Again: How and when and with whom for whom? If I triumph, how can I expect, demand, cajole, surrender from the other 30 per cent or 40 per cent, as the case may be? No matter what the good or the ideal intended, that cooperation and support is not forthcoming. It is material and relevant and consequential. We persevere with futility in talking about Constitution and governance.
Then, I serve another statistical appetizer on which this nation should nibble, perhaps chew. In the last three decades (only), I humbly tender that, in the highest, most far-reaching, most decisive institution in this society, the record of agreeing and final agreement on anything is as sparse as snowfalls in Stabroek. There is the negligible, the unrecognisable, the garbage time points, which add up to less than nothing. The place to which I refer is parliament. What has been agreed upon that was not of the minor and inconsequential, but of the constructive and heavyweight upbuilding for the greatest number with the greatest good in mind? In the things held dear? That carries elsewhere?
Has it not been of words and wars and the all-pervasive weaknesses that keep blowing apart without any hope of mending? Has it not been the charity of a meaningless giveaway here, some irrelevant concession there? And all the while, the groundbreaking things that could move this place upward, not necessarily together, have gone abegging. Look at the disemboweling over this bill or that, a chair, a CJ, a chancellor, a list and all the other conflicts that are not about advancing society but sabotaging it. This prevails in every area of life: charity, church, corner-shop, community.
As usual, I stand ready to admit to the unacceptability of my thinking, the reflexive dismissal of anything that is contrary to the settled norms. What are those norms?
It is that one or the other: the PNC or the PPP could alone govern and run this country, while the other side represented by its leadership and supporters applaud and embrace. Is somebody kidding me? What kind of fool am I thought of as being? If all of this country declares itself to be willing fools in such a pretense, then proceed, I say. After all, such is the priceless nature of democratic freedoms, the fundamentalist character of the peoples of this proud society.
In these mental and spiritual conflicts of between 65-75 per cent of the population, the rest are simply buffers and opportunities to be wooed and won by one of the majors to weaken its competitor. Even though this is widely known, it is still worthy of repeating, if only for the emphasising. Thus, there are the major divisions, accompanied by the disturbances in the smaller subsets that lead to division within division. This is a land cannibalising itself limb by limb, one vocal cord and one brain cell at a time. There has been long practice.
Here is my last line: Who is governing whom? And that governance gives us what? What hope? What future? What forward marching? Other than what is being fought bitterly and ferociously over through lists and electors and the related pieces? Because whoever emerges on top is sure to continue with the same farces and follies that leave with the same failures and fragments. If this is the governance desired, then count me out. Best wishes, Guyana.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
