Dear Editor,
Many people, locally and internationally, congratulated Sir Clive Lloyd on his knighthood from the British Queen. But I was astounded that nothing came from the Government of Guyana nor the Opposition nor any of the other political parties (excuse me if I may have missed the latter), and I asked myself why one of the greatest Cricket Captains who has ever graced that wonderful sport could have been dissed in such a manner by the leaders in the country of his birth? Why the President of Guyana, who described himself as a “prudent and wise” leader, could not be magnanimous and congratulate Sir Clive? And I came to the conclusion that because of racism we do not know what it means to be a “nation.” We are disunited because of the notion of “race.”
We are indeed a large body of people of different ethnicities in one geographical space known as “Guyana”. But the building blocks of a nation are not there, so backwardness is evident. Freddie Kissoon, in his Kaieteur News column, frequently bemoans the continuities of backwardness and lack of development since Independence. He frequently writes that it is the same poverty, the same negative attitudes to development, the lack of a culture of maintenance, the same corruption and it goes on. And we can go further back to the 1950s, as observed in the book Decade of High Hopes (edited by Dorothy Irwin), on the experiences of an American couple in Guyana: there is the same begging, bills in reduplicate, and of course, poor race relations.
Because of our lens of race, there has been a destructive approach to governance and development. There is no concern for the past. When the PPP came into power in 1992, one of their first acts was to destroy the Foreign Ministry by burning documents and disintegrating the cadres of diplomats which had successfully kept the expansionist ambitions of Suriname and Venezuela at bay.
A similar act has taken place 26 years later by the APNU+AFC administration with the gutting of staff of the same Ministry and making concessions to Venezuela so that the players can have a year of alleged glory at the expense of the nation’s border controversy. Maybe these players are operating in that Guyanese mindset to actions that can have dire consequences: “it gon wuk out.”
Whenever I pass the Georgetown Cricket Club on Regent Street, I am saddened at how the PPP government allowed that hallowed club where many great cricketers walked up and down those famous stairs in past years, to fall into disrepair. Rather than putting money into that famous and hallowed field, they built a new stadium at Providence which has begun to have maintenance issues. The Barbadians built a new construction around their hallowed field at Kensington Oval. There is a new building, but the name and the history of the place remains.
African-Guyanese (note, not Indo-Guyanese) are accustomed to having major political events at The Square of the Revolution where there is the statue of that great African revolutionary Cuffy. This year the launching of the APNU+AFC manifesto was done next door at the fairly newly built and already deteriorating D’Urban Park (and which I call Granger’s Folly) – so we are moving away from the National (although East Indians would not congregate at Cuffy) to the personal.
There is also the issue of incompetent Ministers in the government – (in 2017 the African Education Minister did not know the difference between Hindu Phagwah and Diwali festivals which became public holidays following Republic status in 1970. And that was not all – she fired the two officers who attempted to correct her). Rather than being shown the door, these Ministers remain, or are moved from one place to another, or worse, promoted. It is not worth commenting on the PPP choice for Presidential candidate – that choice boggles the mind. The point I am making is that the choice has nothing to do with the benefit of the nation, but some very narrow political agenda, viewed through the lens of race, and has great potential for profiteering for a few.
Every President since Independence in1966 makes an inaugural speech about bringing the ethnic groups together, but the disunity remains the same. The elections on March 2, 2020 will bring the same rhetoric from the winner and everything will remain the same – in fact, with the flow of oil, relations will likely deteriorate. We have two large minorities so whosoever wins, a large chunk of the population will be left out – a large percentage will be aggrieved. Therefore, whosoever wins, will have a torrid time governing. It means that we have to come up with a means of uniting the people as happened in countries such as Malaysia and Singapore and which are flourishing.
Nigeria was at one time viewed as a potential power house. But due to ethnic divisions, the country has not lived up to its potential and has been described as a case of “co-habitation without marriage.” In other words, it cannot develop because it is not a nation. In Nigeria, only 1 percent of the population benefit from the oil industry, and we cannot afford that.
The people of Guyana must thank the Prime Minister of the nation of Barbados, the Honourable Mia Mottley, for recommending Sir Clive Lloyd for a knighthood. The leaders of a divided Guyana – a country that knows nothing about heroes – (a few years ago, the main cemetery in Georgetown also functioned as a garbage dump site and graves disappeared) – could not recommend Sir Clive, far less congratulate and celebrate with him.
Yours faithfully,
Professor Kean Gibson
