On the day the elections results were declared, many Guyanese breathed a sigh of relief. I know I certainly did. We had been trapped in a five-month electoral deadlock that had long become tiresome for many. While everyday citizens are suffering the economic and social fallouts of a still building pandemic, our politicians continued to do what they do best, hold us hostage with their never-ending appetite for power.
I am convinced that one has to have a fatal character flaw in order to be amongst our leadership team in Guyana. The bright and idealistic are so often consumed by the nature of our politics, that they quickly become unrecognizable after even a brief foray into it. The nature of money, power and corruptibility as always, never stray too far from each other.
In his inaugural address, the new president made well-tried and worn statements of serving the Guyanese people collectively regardless of social and economic divisions. As always, one can hope, but history has a way of projecting our future for us if only we pay attention to it. Has idealism ever served us well?
For want of a better word – the continued reign of the PPP/C, briefly interrupted by the APNU+AFC – will be an interesting one. With the magnanimity of the promised oil wealth now behind them and the ready supportive palms of ABC empires, it will be an interesting time indeed for our little Guyana and the disadvantaged amongst us.
History and the patterns it reveals can be very enlightening if we care to examine them beyond our own belief systems. Strategic misinformation can aid in the reimagining of entire realities. Rewriting history and framing the past as just a bad dream we must not acknowledge is easily done and easily bought into.
We are for the most part, a lost people who seek hope where there is none. We continue to buy into the myth that politicians aim to serve the people, rather than accepting the reality that politicians live to serve the corporations they are beholden to for their power.
To note the zeal with which the democracy warriors celebrate their championed cause would be amusing if it did not hint at the insidious nature of our politics. Freedom, transparency, democracy, three words that dominated our election cycle and which today continue to have very little meaning in our context or in that of the Northern countries who continue to meddle in our affairs.
I think of how these concepts were co-opted by the once again ruling party and how easy of a task it was for them to hoist themselves up as victimized angels when their 23-year reign stood as the antithesis to anything that could be considered transparent.
There is no denying that the former administration made significant efforts to rig the elections in their favour. What amazed me however was how many democracy warriors only learnt of the concept of democracy post 2015. In their eyes, Guyana was akin to an untarnished Mecca whose realities of free, fair and credible elections were besmirched by the coalition.
If you are one of those who honestly believe that our entire electoral history has not been tainted by rigging, I will need you to check your privilege and analyze those beliefs in depth. Our elections have always been heavily manipulated by the major parties.
Democracy remains a tool for the strategic manipulator. The coalition failed because they have never been strategic at anything. Their entire rule up to the end was made up of blunder after blunder. The current administration has had decades to perfect its strategy and if nothing else, I respect strategy –even as I fear the implications of it in this case.
There are a lot of things that this election cycle made clearer for me. The intensity of anti-Blackness stood out starkly.
Now that this reel draws to an end, is it time for the Guyanese collective to down their tools of ethnic strife and live under the holey umbrella of multi-ethnic happiness once again? Will neighbours who stopped talking to each other on the basis of party flags find common ground within their communities? Will the vile racism that has seeped through the pores of so many creep back into its corner of obscurity while they once again don masks of tolerant unity?
In wondering whether it is time to return to normal, we must delve into what our normal really means. We live in a repetitive cycle of ethnic tension denials to stating that it only exists amongst us during elections season. So does racism go into hibernation at the conclusion of every cycle, yawning and growling only when prodded?
We continue to downplay our race issues at our own peril. Many have a vested interest in ensuring that nothing changes. Merely talking about the realities of race and its impacts on minority populations can see one being branded as a racist who sows division. There are always counter arguments that what we have is a class problem, not a racial one.
Certainly, class inequality is amongst one of the many isms that keep the collective oppressed but it is not without context. Racism and classism are not separate from each other; the very same systems that brought us enslavement were also the same ones that brought us class inequality. It is very counterproductive to see them as removed from each other or as to think of one as more important or deserving of attention.
They are thoroughly interconnected and looking at them in isolation can magnify their individual limitations. If we only look through the lens of race, then we blind ourselves to the underclass of persons across various ethnicities. If we only look through the lens of class, then we blind ourselves to the wide array of systemic obstacles race stratifications places in the path of African and Indigenous peoples in Guyana.
When it comes to the way in which ethnic hegemony has played out throughout our electoral history, one can only hope that there will be progressive steps towards the promised cohesion all our leaders give lip service to. I am very aware of the fact though; idealism has never served us well.
