I HAVE been fortunate in roaming around Georgetown to meet many friendly and helpful Guyanese. One particularly delightful individual bounced up wearing an AFC T-shirt. As the individual moved away, the back of the T-shirt caught my attention and the slogan imprinted on the T-shirt is attached for your viewing.

The slogan said ‘RACIAL VOTING = WRONG LEADERS’. This was followed by the line, ‘Vote for your ISSUES’. The implication being, of course, that Guyanese are racial voters and that we must desist from this abominable practice and instead begin voting for our issues and then the right leaders will emerge. So, basically the problems that this country faces are our fault – the racial voters that we are; not the fault of poor leadership or poor political ideologies or a poor system of voting.

This blatant accusation that Guyanese are racial voters is not one with which I can identify. And I do consider myself to be a bona fide Guyanese, born and raised here. It has been said so much that Guyanese themselves are repeating it. This is where the skill of our political leadership lies, in manipulating the people, certainly not in development. If we want to see skill in development-focused political leadership, we need look no further than next door: Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Apart from my discomfort with the equation in the Guyanese context, the equality looks amazingly accurate. AFC may have intended an implication, meaning that racial voting will have a consequence of producing wrong leaders. This is certainly true, mostly, though not necessarily so. In the Guyanese context, I would turn that implication around. It should be written thus:

‘WRONG LEADERS? RACIAL VOTING’
So, is this a chicken and egg scenario? It would be if we did not know which one came first. AFC clearly does not know this. ‘Vote for your ISSUES’ is a clear reference to voters and leaves little ambiguity as to their implication and, hence, to their misrepresentation of the people of this nation.

I have much appreciation for some of the work that the AFC is doing for Guyana. The manner in which they exposed and peeled away the lack of accountability in government expenditure is remarkable, especially considering that various incarnations of the PNC have been in Opposition for so many years and they only managed to burn buildings, riot, maim, destroy, terrorise, polarise and retard growth and progress.
But the PNC will always be a poor benchmark (and we must never again in this nation confuse the PNC with a one-to-one correlation with African Guyanese; one only needs to bring to mind Walter Rodney) and I am unable to pardon any new political party who will deploy such poverty of thought as to accuse anyone who does not vote for them as being racial or racist. It is possible to distinguish between racial voting and racist voting. A racist voter needs no explanation, so we may consider more closely the meaning of racial voting. Maybe the AFC means that before we vote we should consider not listening to politicians who extol the virtues of ‘kith and kin’ or ‘apanjaat’ break the pattern and engage with issues instead. But where are these racial voting paradigms coming from? Not from the rank and file of the nation. It is coming from political party leadership. AFC needs to write the equation properly:

WRONG LEADERS = RACIAL VOTING
Focus on ISSUES

This would be proper political representation for the people of Guyana. Perhaps it is only in Guyana that the politicians have contempt for those who put them in office or for those whose support they are seeking. Are we so ill-fated that we, having vast resources and educated people (Senator Ted Kennedy), are saddled with the poorest quality of leaders in the region? Not if we understand and internalise the mathematics:
WRONG  LEADERS? RACIAL VOTING
WRONG  LEADERS? SECTARIAN VOTING
WRONG  LEADERS? RELIGIOUS VOTING
WRONG  LEADERS? ETC, ETC, ETC, ETC

The quality of leadership matters.

It takes responsible leadership to lead a nation to growth and development. All across the world responsible leaders are lifting their populations out of poverty. This is not an impossibility. The successes that the Brazilians are enjoying today can be traced back at least 100 years ago to prudent decision making and the beginnings of a development-oriented political culture.
Closer to contemporary politics, former President Lula da Silva of Brazil: “The fight against hunger and poverty is also predicated on the creation of a world order that accords priority to social and economic development. Well-fed people can enhance their dignity, their health and their learning capacity. Putting resources into social programmes is not expenditure. It is investment. If with so little we have done so much in Brazil, imagine what could have been done on a global scale, if the fight against hunger and poverty were a real priority for the international community “This is not rhetoric. President Lula actually delivered and Brazil continues to lead the world, most recently enacting ground breaking labour laws for domestic workers. President Lula had inner qualms and concerns about running for a second term. He simply puts our politicians to shame.

In a democracy, the people, to the extent that they are capable, have a responsibility to hold the government and those aspiring to government accountable to uphold a certain level of moral and ethical standard. The people demand and set the standard. Here in Guyana, the politicians desire to tell us what to want and how to be and who we are. Dominating the people is part of their political ideology. If they knew how to listen, the People of Guyana are sincerely communicating daily but there is no one to hear because the politicians are blindly focused on how they can get themselves into ‘power.’

The People of Guyana are calling for genuine National Unity. They are praying for it. They are calling for it in their music, their worship, their aspirations to Oneness. Which politician is capable of hearing the cry? Where is the politician imbued with the purity of spirit to understand a cry of the heart?
So, when the AFC is ready to talk ISSUES with the people of this country, let them bring it on. It will require a little more thought that careless T-shirt slogans and elevation of cliches (No Peace without Justice) into virtues. It will certainly require more than blind worship of Westminster and emulation of the incredible journey the ‘Lords’ and Noble folk of Great Britain took in the development of the English Legal System; certainly a vital part of our history but by no means the entirety of it. It will require a journey into the hearts and minds of the Honourable Citizens of this land; and that is a journey that begins here and extends to all reaches of the world and to all great civilisations, not only western. While colonial leaders oppressed our forefathers and ancestors in days gone by, citizens of today will not stand for the continued oppression and emasculation of our cultures, languages, religions and values by our impoverished political leadership. Our foreparents fought for something and we demand that very level of self-respect today.

Culture and religion are not window dressings for humanity; they adorn the human soul and celebrate the divine and enhance human ability, knowledge and wisdom. They are the embodiment of the wisdom and values of humanity supporting us as we strive to live our best life and develop good relationships.

While our sick leadership will strive for ways to use culture, religion and ethnicity to divide the people of this nation, we call upon God, in all the ways we know how, to rise up from us, from all corners of this nation, from all communities and all cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds, leaders with piety and goodness in their hearts and minds. We call upon God to rise up from among us pious leaders who we can vote for, so that we may change from having to vote against.

In most countries with plural societies, people aspire for equality. Guyanese aspirations include equality but we take it a step further, we aspire for Oneness and Unity: One People, One Nation, One Destiny. Oneness and Unity are attributes of God. Oneness is an attribute of a purified state of human consciousness sometimes referred to as a state of non-duality.

In order to move forward to genuine national unity, characterised by genuine respect for self and other, western political paradigms alone will not suffice. A great mind once said that a problem cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness that created it. We must draw from the best of our wisdom traditions to purify consciousness and ascend. While the politicians are increasing their rhetoric and actively trying to draw us into more conflict to sustain the political divide in this nation for their benefit, this Independence, we the People choose.

We observe the effect on our bodies of a message of love and reconciliation: an expansion of mind and heart and a reaching out and a feeling of solidarity; we observe the effect of fear and animosity on our hearts: a contraction of mind and heart, creating a feeling of separation; One comes from the Spirit; one does not. One uplifts, one does not.

We, the People of this Nation, guard our own hearts, without concern for condemnation of the hearts of others. The People of this Nation live daily in peace and quiet with focus, dedication and commitment to hard work and we work for progress and unity and it is time for the nation to influence the politics for the emergence of genuine political representation.