Dear Editor,
Not a day passes without me concluding that we are more and more polarized, vehemently so.
“National unity is the basis of national security.” That was part of the opinion rendered by Justice Felix Frankfurter for the 8-1 majority in Minersville School District v. Gobitis eighty years ago. I agree with that, especially as it now can be applied to our oil wealth. We are divided, which powerfully serves the interests and objectives of multinational Exxon. Our division has fostered unsettled psychological upheavals in racial electoral winners and losers, which impinges upon anything that is national in Guyana, including its fragile security.
We argue endlessly, foolishly, and uselessly. We make enemies of our fellow citizens over oil positions and then attack them. Exxon seasons political elites well, who incite fellow travelers to condemn those calling for a different approach. Thus, we stand in pathetic tatters before a watching world, but remain firmly committed to maintaining the same self-destructive modus vivendi. This is appealing to the unreconstructed pathological racists in both camps. It powers those who are about hanging on to political leadership coattails (the petticoat crowd) for recognition and reward via cushy jobs, lucrative contracts, awards of prime lands, and the other benefits that come to successful political groupies. They are no different from the ones that stalk sports stars and sell themselves to those who can introduce them to the good life.
But, for every day that the nation remains starkly and perilously divided, the money that should come from our oil to ignite our individual and collective prosperity never wends its full way back to our credit. While we squabble the MNCs carry away the depleting wealth. While we bicker, the local political wise guys engage in one gigantic financial subterfuge after another and get away with all of them. That rich heavy money stream does not come to the nation and its multitudes. Either Exxon gets away with most of it legally, and/or our own trusted leaders make financial hay while the people are at each other’s throats. The democracy of the ordinary man is how I interpret.
On the other hand, and this is not nuclear physics, when the leaders and people of this country can hold one head and stand united, then a formidable and feared force is created. Formidable and feared by the Exxon(s) of the world, who now are under the sharpest of foci because the masses are not distracted nor preoccupied with the traditional local bigotries that cripple. The MNCs would have lost their biggest trump card. And even with only 750,000 citizens coming up against, the spectre and reality of a united populace are daunting in the contemplation, as to the havoc that can be wreaked by a people poor enough, betrayed enough, angry enough, and determined enough not to be cheated anymore. The Iraqis had figured out ways to make life less welcoming for those who came to take their oil and leave them still divided and still impoverished. The Nigerians tried for a while, but leaders had other ideas.
Formidable and feared is (and would remain) the mindset and reactions of the local leadership cohort to oneness. Because a citizenry that is brought together lessens their self-enriching take, menaces their underhanded activities since all eyes are upon them. For the longest time here, the political elites took turns at plundering national monies, be such from revenues earned or massive debts accumulated. Today, I believe that there is a devilish alliance between them with our oil wealth. It is why I think that they keep us divided, because that facilitates their helping of themselves from the rich bonanza, as citizens rage and clash. I suspect that the reciprocal barbs hurled at the leadership levels are a farce, which obscures their true self-serving programmes.
Hence, we continue to be divided, which suits Exxon and our crooked political cabals on both sides. National unity would lead to national security and national oil prosperity. Disunity perpetuates the poverty and weakness of the masses. And if that is not where are today, then I ask for enlightenment from any source.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
