The way we live

The March 2 general elections and the protracted political spillover serve as, among other things, a poignant reminder   that we may be closer than we think to    exhausting our options for determining for ourselves the way we live, before fate and our folly remove from us the prerogative of exercising that choice. Frankly and upon reflection, it is an unfathomable folly to think that, thrown together in the same physical space as we have been, left with little option but to play, as astutely as we can, the hand that circumstances have dealt us, we are absurd enough to think that the differences that preceded our respective ‘arrivals’ here can take precedence over the imperative of directing our attention to the requisites of a compulsory coexistence. Where, therefore, we cannot find a way to correctly order our priorities as a matter of the greatest importance, all of us and our cherished differences are likely to pay a high price for our short-sightedness. 

 What is now the urgent need to diligently probe the nature of our socio-political circumstances then apply our energies to some critical transformations in the manner in which we order our affairs has still not, even at this worrying juncture, dawned on us.  That is perhaps the clearest manifestation of our long-entrenched proclivity for living in denial. What does not seem to occur to us is that we cannot dodge the bullet forever.

The essence of the challenge reposes in marrying an irreproachable standard of democratic practice in our political behaviour with robust assurances that have to do with our growth and our survival, taking account of differences that we have no power to change. That we have, it seems, been unable, over all these decades, to come up with a formula for governing ourselves that provides all the assurances that our particular circumstances demand, is a mountain that we are still unable to climb. Worse than that, perhaps, has been the persistence of a studious political pretence that the problem does not exist at all. There is, all too frequently, a thoroughly shameful political charade that posits the view that the differences are more imagined than real. When, as happens at the polls, that parody is exposed the pretence vanishes like chaff in the wind.  Here, one might add that it is high time that we embrace the importance of correcting the serious imbalance between the discourse on   democracy, on the one hand, and on the other, the no less valid issue of our differences and how they impact our political behaviour. If we take the two together and do so from the perspective of seeking to find solutions we are likely to get much further than where we have gotten up until now, with our studious pretence that our differences are ‘not a problem.’ Put differently, to think that, somehow, we can confront what we perceive to be our political problems whilst leaving the matter of our differences aside is to do no more than tilt at proverbial windmills.

Truth be told, the fact that we find ourselves, most of us, separating the two issues, one from another, has to do with our lack of intestinal fortitude to deal with them together…and candidly. One understands, of course, that these can be awkward realities to face frontally. As it happens, ours is a circumstance in which ignoring those differences, sweeping them aside in a cloud of opaque altruism can be costly. However much and for however long we dither, circumstances do not permit us to dwell in our enclaves of evasiveness forever.  

It cannot, now, but be clear to every enlightened Guyanese who is serious about the well-being of our country and about its development that the extant political divisions that persist along the lines that they do, hang like a Sword of Damocles over our heads and that a time may well come, even as we persist in extracting comfort from our compartmentalization separate, the thread (how slender or otherwise it is at this stage is difficult to say) that suspends that Sword above all of our heads, may break.

After March 2, and the still ensuing tumult, we are, surely, reminded that we can no longer bury our heads in the sand about the realities that inform our electoral behaviour and the ingrained insecurities that exist across real barriers and which drives political choices. It is, for the most part, considerations pertaining to perceptions about the well-being of ourselves and our kind that guide our hands at the places of polling.  Mammoth political rallies are usually about ‘rallying the faithful’ not ‘topping up’ a constituency that is already set in stone. At the height of the intensity that informs the nature of the political rally, it is the assuaging of insecurities, not the manifesto undertakings that matter. To those who are permanent prisoners of their insecurities messages and manifestoes are not worth the paper they are written on. It is the in-gathering that counts.

We lack the courage, too many of us, to so describe our distressing condition. It is the numbers that count so that whatever we do we cannot afford to abandon our bases nor speak truths that will have little if any traction with one-track minds.

No more evidence is needed, surely, that the way we live is fraught with risks, going forward; that if we persist further down the road of blocking out   the reality of our awkward existence we may, even now, be trekking towards our Waterloo. That is what the available evidence would appear to suggest.