Dear Editor,
I stay with what I believe offers a way out of our ugly political impasses. Shared governance, it is called. It is certain to incur more hostility and scorn, which is enough to encourage continuing along the path chosen, while groping for sanity.
Shared governance. How do I see it? It is comprehensive political and civil inclusion in managing all vital areas of governance: the economy, oil integrity, major institutions, and civilian and national security, among numerous others. It should not include the two political majors, but there is no ridding of them. Against all that I stand for, they have to be counted, with inclusive extending (significantly) to other crucial groups in society; religious, media, and professional estates are some. Cumbersome certainly, but otherwise we have nothing, but the promise of good conduct, good practices, and good results, with nothing remotely resembling such.
We would need expert guidance on the formation and implementation of the organs for democratic management at different levels. Since upwards of 85% of our higher educated base migrate, what we have left is mainly the riffraff that relishes squabbling and cursing, while getting nowhere. Which country can get anything done, succeed to any degree, with a 15% intellectual residue? And when it is almost equally divided along racial political lines? That reduces to a struggling 7% when governing, and with a critical and sabotaging 7% arrayed against in opposition and confusion. In truth, it is the confusion that ties in knots over who is better and fitter to govern.
Some learned men-professors and authorities-think of matters from academic angles, including political science (democracy), economics (distribution), statistics (demographics) and so forth. The religious see it as a cursing from above. The foreigners view it as a paradox that ruffles their drawing boards. And the vast local criminal class recognize it as tailor-made for moneymaking. All have truth.
For myself, I reduce governance to the kernel: it is an ‘Indian and African’ issue. All problems, all controversies, all impasses distill to that irreversible reality. Who should, and who should not… also, who sacrificed more, who came later, (and who squandered more). That is the sum of the sophistication and simplicity of Guyana’s sociology. It is what everybody knows, but none own up to and do something. We comfort ourselves with lies. I tell the first one: we are only this way around elections season; such convenient falsifications should be a capital crime. The truth is that-regardless of haves and have nots, slavery and indentureship, democracy and clean governance, backward and bright citizens-what we have is a ‘Indian and African’ epidemic of national proportions. We may pretend and wish otherwise, but there it is.
Editor, some questions are timely. After the race fights ingrained in elections proceed somewhere beyond tomorrow, how do we face each other in parliament? How do we trust any other from anywhere at any time on anything? Johnnie Walker (pick a colour) may induce the blessed relief of momentary forgetfulness, but reality returns.
Is the Leader of the Opposition embraceable, when on his hands many wrongs are deposited? Is the president to be regarded with warmth after his own (electoral) exploits involving well over 100,000 votes? Supporters have been assured and reassured that they have won. How do they deal tranquilly and contentedly with losing? Remember the numbers of this Indian and African problem: it is not 90/10 or 80/20 or even 60/40, however counted. Remember this: no viable centre exists as buffer.
Whatever it is, at the end of it, we still have this ‘Indian and African’ problem that is fixed through inclusive governance. Inclusive is the temporary cushion.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
