– Patriotism has to rise above ambitions
“Ask not what your country can do for you, but for what you can do for your country.”
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
One is a philosophical thought, and one is a Biblical command, but they are imperative guidelines for living one’s life.

However, Guyanese in general seem to eschew these concepts, because the litany of complaints against the Government, even when the evidence is contrary to a perceived contention, and the self-centred attitudes we exhibit to our fellow humans on a daily basis, is an indictment against our humanity as a nation.

So when I see this public outpouring of compassion for the people of Haiti, deserving as they are of that compassion, I am tempted to say “humbug”, because in our daily lives we display little of that compassion and caring for our fellow Guyanese and little loyalty to our own country.`

Within the landscape of our nationhood almost everyone is affiliated to one political party or another, which is absolutely fine.

What is not so fine is that, in efforts to advance the cause of respective political opposition parties, or even the opposition collective, we oftentimes use our academic and intellectual capabilities to circumnavigate the truth, even at leadership levels, in representational contexts, in efforts to downgrade the current administration.

When the destructive PNC regime had reached the abyss of apocalypse for this nation, every right-thinking Guyanese said “enough”, and the capitalist elites joined forces with the much-hated working–class Party, the PPP, in a desperate attempt to oust the PNC out of office.

Fittingly so, because they were the facilitators, through the United Force, that were joint conspirators with imperial forces in the UK and the USA to derail the PPP’s momentum of development and effectively seat two of their own – Forbes Burnham and Peter D’Aguiar, on the primary administrative seat of the budding Guyanese nation. The nation subsequently wilted and nearly blew away in the winds of destruction as dried up chaff as a result.

Thus was the PCD formed, but the intent of the elitists was apparent, because they merely wanted to use the PPP as a vehicle to get into the corridors of power as they could never reach there by way of merit. Their intent was evident by their refusal to allow Dr. Jagan to be the PPP’s presidential candidate, despite the fact that Dr. Jagan was the iconic head of that Party, and the major player in the dynamics of Guyana’s political struggles, even when the leadership of that Party promised that Dr. Clive Thomas would be offered the Prime Ministerial position.

The leadership of the PPP had no fear, because they knew that their Party could win any free-and-fair elections in this country hands down, but Dr. Jagan had consented to join the grouping because he had always advocated, and advanced, the unity of the Guyanese people as the ideal of nationhood.

It is the principle on which the PPP was established, but in light of the contemptuous and contemptible behaviour of the elitists of the nation, they contested the 1992 elections under the singular banner of that Party – and won, of course.

Stabroek News and David De Caries were part of that elitist collective, as were Christopher Ram, Rupert Roopnarine, Clive Thomas, et al, mainly under the banner of the WPA. The decline of the WPA heralded the formation of the AFC, with the same players being part of the current political equation, with various configurations melding into one opposition collective – which jerks to one common string, but this string casts a very wide net, even at international representational levels.

Enter Janet Bulkan and her diatribes against the PPP through the pages of the Stabroek News, subverting truths and facts by using the most sensitive of issues as her weapon – the Government’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).

The PPP, through its successive governments, has always developed this country in responsible ways, taking into consideration its various aspects of strengths and weaknesses, and taking cognizance of the imperative of environmentally-friendly dynamics requisite to the formulation of a developmental path, which has formed the basis for the formulation of its policies.

Thus it was that, in the early 90’s, just after acceding to the presidency of the nation, Dr. Cheddi Jagan commissioned a study by the World Resources Institute (WRI) to help him find ways to reform forest policy in Guyana. In the foreword of the published report, a publication entitled “Profit without Plunder”, Jonathan Lash, Chairman of the WRI, said that “President Jagan was particularly interested in how Guyana could reap revenue from its forests without destroying them.”

President Jagdeo has taken that concern of the Father of the Guyanese Nation to a new level. He has made a comprehensive study of all the extant dynamics of Guyana’s environmental landscape, with absolute care for the welfare of our indigenous peoples, and formulated the LCDS, which is being lauded the world over, and which has earned our President nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The opposition collective, in their inimitable style, has gone into frenzy.
Without considering the implications – financial, social, et cetera, for our country, to which we all owe loyalty, they have gone on another of their high-voltage assaults against the Guyana Government in the person of the President of this nation; and Guyana’s LCDS has now become another statistic in this landscape where vitriolic politics predominate over patriotism, and egomania driving self-aggrandizement obfuscate rational and factual analyses.

When I first read Janet Bulkan’s theoretical pieces on our forestry sector, I was happy that someone learned and literary was championing our environment, and I was angry with the Government for allowing so many infringements on our forest laws. However, after some research, my initial admiration of this woman soon changed to skepticism and then disgust as the blatant misrepresentations of truth escalated alarmingly
under the guise of intellectual analysis.

One day, as I was surfing channels, I saw Bulkan and Christopher Ram, a presidential aspirant, applauding the exploits of each other, subsequent to which these two super-egos launched a tirade against President Jagdeo and the Government’s LCDS.

What emerged from this extra-terrestrial encounter was an appalling circumnavigation of facts, central to which was Bulkan’s contention that President Jagdeo should not drive the national LCDS, openly suggesting that someone else (meaning her, I suppose) should be the primary representative of this nation to the various fora at which considerations of climate change is integral.

But who can achieve President Jagdeo’s superlative representation of our nation’s causes, to the extent where CARICOM fellow leaders have vested him with representational status for this Region’s causes? And who among the opposition collective knows (and cares about) the needs of this nation as Guyana’s President does?

This position is inherent in their perennial attempts to acquire positions without merit being factored into their rationalizations and contentions – as in the case where they advanced their own candidate and rejected that of the PPP pre-1992 General Elections.

Her unbelievable appointment by the World Bank as a member of the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) for Suriname in the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, in the face of such blatant prejudices, boggles the mind, and anyone knowing of her predisposition to putting personal ambitions before patriotism should not be surprised that she would ignore Suriname’s inclusion of part of Guyana’s territory in their map, mainly because she was representing Suriname’s cause on an environment-centric forum.

And the championship of Bulkan byAndaiye and Alissa Trotz, two unquestionably wonderful women, is surprising, given their nationalistic stance on issues.

However, on hindsight, one should not really be surprised, because they are both members of the WPA. However, as someone who has long admired them, especially Andaiye, I am very disappointed that they would join ranks with someone who has demonstrated such an appalling lack of patriotism, to the extent where they have communicated their displeasure to the World Bank.

I am always being chastised for being naïve in the ways of the world, because I perennially believe in the ultimate goodness in humankind, although many times I am confronted with evidence of dishonesty of just such colossal proportions as I am currently witnessing, even on the part of persons I once respected.

Anyone who compromises the welfare of their country for personal advancement and considerations is a pimp of his countrymen, and should be thus treated – with absolute contempt, and sent to Coventry, because patriotism should be the ultimate factor driving one’s actions, especially those of aspiring leaders of the nation.