Guyana’s political impasse has been brought to an abrupt end thankfully, but unfortunately at the expense of loss of life in Bath Settlement earlier on in year and the psychological scarring of young schoolchildren making their way from school.
I felt scared watching the elections from miles away. I took it upon myself to drop the statement “I am not playing into the narratives,” every time I felt as if I was being baited into developing stereotyped viewpoints. I did it to preserve my mental health and so I could be rational in my thinking and judgement. It is easy for the lines to get blurred.
Election periods have been historically deeply intertwined with race and ethnic tension as opposed to policy so for many reasons they are always difficult times for us regardless of what we might like to convince ourselves. The wounds will not be easy to heal. A lot of coded racism has been thrown around carelessly under the cloak of democracy.
