THE avalanche of comments that my article of July 10 carried only by the Guyana Chronicle was part of a PPP design amazed me. I am not an affiliate of any political party. Sadly, the mental make-up of Guyanese is such that, if you are black, your uttering must be pro-black and vice versa; if you speak in support of a position, you hate the other person’s position; if you speak of your race, you hate the other race(s). The pall of destruction and doom always hovers above us – to this nation’s peril.
In my last contribution I referred to a repeat of 1963/1964 being on the agenda of certain activists. A few days after, Linden flared up. Was it premonition on my part? No! If we – all of us – continue to be hypocritical and refuse to face reality, Guyana will slowly but surely go down the abyss of no return.
Two days ago I happened to be with a group of U.S. visitors made up of blacks, Indians and a few in-between. Their common query was: Why can’t there be peace in Guyana? My answer was unequivocally race and politics.
Another election and it will be straight PNC and PPP. The in-betweens: trade unions, pressure groups , AFC, youth movements and some half-baked commentators etc, etc, are merely dancing between the space existing between the two major parties.
Let us go to the Linden issue. When Demba ruled Guyana in terms of earnings per capita, Linden was like El Dorado, the money magnet. But those in power at the time refused to accept that bauxite, like any other mineral, is never inexhaustible. Did anyone try to put in a Plan B? No! As is the wont with Guyanese, we hoped that others will come up with a Plan B. The situation at Linden where unemployment is high did not happen overnight. Linden suffers from the bail-out syndrome so synonymous with certain communities in Guyana. No matter how much resources you plough into some communities, they evaporate without evidence of positive results. Linden has had its share of billions – and not from the PNC/APNU/AFC but from the PPP. Left to the PNC, Linden would have been a ghost town long ago. They do not contribute to making of the pie, but they want to part take in it.
This takes me back to my infamous article of July 10 when I posited that many Black youths are simply reluctant to go back to the soil but prefer to target people to rob, Indians being the bulk of the victims.
I noticed that all those who button-holed my article into the political fold, studiously avoided to comment on that reality. I wonder how they felt about the recent accident victim, Alwin Thomas, whose dead body was relieved of money and a cell phone or the gold miners who were robbed as they were passing through Linden? Who committed these acts? Was it Indians or Blacks? One incident took place in Georgetown and the other in Linden. A common syndrome – regardless of where it happens in Guyana.
People in my Black collective, particularly our so-called leaders, mentally enslave us.  Let us clean our own house. Let us work to build that which can sustain us from generation to generation – not quick fixes which evaporate and leave us with greater expectations than before the handouts. But our leaders have a problem here: you cannot go to the black youths and tell them to stop robbing people, stay in school, cultivate all those yards which have knee-high grass and bush. I refer to Robert Corbin and his futile attempts at Buxton. Leaders: you have not disputed that failure. Embarrassed?
Yes.  Some sections of youths are being socialised, consciously and otherwise, towards a particular tendency that black leaders can protest until the walls of Jericho collapse. We cannot escape that truth which only we seem to be unaware of.
As an ex-soldier, I would not face angry and violent protestors with an empty weapon or with rubber bullets. The sticks and clubs (and possibly hidden firearms) which protestors carry are not made of rubber. So who would I, a law-enforcement person facing a hostile crowd with an empty weapon? Am  I Superman?
Get real, David Hinds, Solomon and others. You dug at an ants nest. The ants burnt and looted. You think you can control them now? The burnings and lootings will spread.
SSP Hicken is a good policeman. Why go for his head? Or Sam Hinds or Rohee’s? What would APNU have done if the roles were reversed? Ask Granger, an ex-soldier like myself.
Linden, it is time the freebies are reduced. You enjoyed them for too long. How long will it take to rebuild what you have destroyed and stolen? How long will the frenzy take to turn racial? Let Lewis and the others wave the magic wand and rebuild them.
Finally, it was unfortunate that lives were lost in an unjustifiable protest. But equal blame must be put on the heads of the organisers of the protest as on those who pulled the trigger.
If sanity does not prevail, 1963/1964 is not far away.