Dear Editor,
From my observation, Guyana needs a brand new kind of politician to take us out of this political catastrophe that the old politicians have placed us in, with their divide and rule methods. At present Editor, we are in dangerous waters, ready to drown ourselves in a political boat sailing in the wrong direction. We need to find a way for more young people to take up leadership in the political arena, but what they are seeing is not encouraging. Politically, Guyana is in a mess due to the unwillingness of the government and the opposition to sit and talk about moving Guyana forward. Many of the comments made by politicians can ignite political uneasiness due to their reckless and insensitive utterances, publicly and in hidden bottom house meetings. Both of the major parties are guilty of race-baiting, and it seems to be getting worse.
While we are fully aware that everyone is entitled to freedom of speech, but that does not give them the right to utter words to cause hate for other races. Race hate is the manifestation of the evil side of oneself, and such behaviour cannot be coming from the good side of any one’s mind. I am of mix race with 12 children and 15 grandchildren who are of the same race, and I want to see them and my fellow Guyanese live in unity but, what I am seeing is that the evil ones are in high speed because they think this is the only way they can achieve what they had set out to do – divide and rule. Men of quality don’t have to dig in the evil pit to find a shortcut to remove any government. Governments must be removed by the ballot, through the good work of the opposition. It can be done if trust can be developed, it takes only 8% of our total voters to move their votes from one party to a next to change the government.
I’d like to address the misconception which is been peddled over the years, that the majority of Indians are getting rich and the majority of Africans are getting poorer, this may not be true. I would like to let our people know a large amount of Afro Guyanese do earn, but may not be risk takers when it comes to big investments; they are putting a lot of their money into mortgages, by building homes, repairing and extending, savings, vehicles, higher purchased items for their homes, insurance, higher education investment for themselves and children. What may be needed is to bring back the family culture of togetherness, pooling financial resource to establish companies as they did after slavery. At present poverty is running rampant. It is attacking members of all races, especially persons who do not have a job, due to the failure of the job creation systems, or the inability of one to create a job for themselves because they lack finance.
What can be done to raise finance to start small and grow? Do we wait for the oil godfather to give us our money? The perception that Indians may have more opportunities may be true and maybe in many other countries also, this can cause Africans to rise against Indians which is dangerous especially if politicians push this narrative, that the opportunity favours one race over a next. The reality is, it is a small percentage of Indians who are getting rich, and the majority of them and other races are feeling the same hardship where poverty enters many homes. What may be saving East Indians in the country area, is remittances, home gardens, fishing, rice, coconut, and other farmers’ produce, but if you look at African Guyanese areas and do a good examination you will notice that those areas have a larger cash circulation and spending, this may be because a large amount of the public servants are African and Mixed-Race and maybe getting better wages than what is been paid by the predominant Indian businesses.
In my assumption. the majority of government contracts indeed go to Indian contractors, the contracts are designed in a way for a contractor to make about 20% profit, a percentage of that amount, maybe go to subcontractors, and the wages for the staff who are involved in the construction work, which may be predominant African and Mixed-Race workers who do well in construction. To me, all races earn fairly well from the state directly and indirectly, but better systems still need to be put in place to stop the perception that one race is benefiting more than the other.
Sincerely,
Michael Carrington
PDM Leader
