TROUBLE-makers walk among us, wanting to disturb the calm and peace of our national demeanor. Touting themselves as activists and concerned citizens looking out for the society, these types walk around with a nasty scowl, sneering at Government, lashing out at independent minds, belittling anyone not of their viewpoint.They walk among us with hysterical irrationality, causing all sorts of mischief, pointing out a mountain of problems, never once designing a workable, sane, people-centred solution.
These hysterical, shouting, quarrelsome folks see the Guyanese nation as their beating drum, banging up on our national psyche and spouting all manner of indecent stuff, proud to be a public nuisance and to berate the public square with demoralising, demotivating and destructive, hardened rhetoric.
And they find ready media coverage in biased, prejudiced national newspapers, on TV programmes, and through internet forums.
We’ve got to beware of this crass ugliness in our society, from these people who grossly disrespect the freely and fairly elected Government of the Guyanese people.
They offer absolutely nothing in rational debates and sensible discussions, instead spouting emotive, irrational, angry accusations, suspicions, allegations and gleefully indulging in grotesque character assassination.
Given Guyana’s lack of sound media legislation, which would, like in every democratic society around the world, protect our public space from such self-destructive behaviour, we must exercise careful decorum and good sense and depth of character to ignore these types, and let the public judge them for their ignoble, classless, ghetto rowdiness.
Democracy could be a messy business, allowing anybody the freedom and democratic right to berate the national social space, to walk among us with scowls and wicked intent in the heart, taking wicked advantage of our freedoms and our cultivation of a fair playing field in the society.
Human nature is such that our society harbours a vociferous cabal of malcontents, disgruntled and discontented souls who vent their frustration and even personal life issues on the national stage. Our citizens become victims of this littering of the social space with ugly rhetoric and baseless, scandalous nonsense.
Of course, at the end of the day, the responsibility rests with the national media to cultivate a social space across Guyana that motivates and uplifts the spirit of Guyanese. Unfortunately, our media space needs urgent reform and modern standards of ethical behaviour.
And in this absence of a Guyanese playing field of responsible national media, we’ve got to exercise the personal sense and noble class and public decorum to ignore these types of people.
With wicked glee and a dreadful meanness, these activists and trouble-makers stir up people they could provoke, pushing for reactions of anger and battle, seeking nothing but to stir up trouble, interested in nothing but crass verbal wars. They walk about as indecent provocateurs, seeking the fall and destruction of whomever would fall into their trap.
We’ve got to beware of these people. Unfortunately, they align themselves with the Opposition, and find ready access in mass media outlets.
We’re not saying we want group-think, and for our society to be free of dissent and debate and discussions.
The Government of President Donald Ramotar encourages a society of open conversation and a sound democratic flow of ideas, solutions and discussions. We want the Guyanese social space to hum with inspiring and motivating discussions and debates.
But we also want to cultivate a Guyanese society that is responsible in exercising our freedoms, classy in our public discourses, rational in our social behaviour, and always looking out for the uplift and rise of our people.
People look and listen to those who champion themselves as leaders in the society for guidance, moral sense and inspiring mentorship. Guyanese want to see our leaders as role models. We must ignore people to carve themselves out as leaders, only to use their platform to berate and belittle our national mind.
It is of paramount importance that our sensible, respectable leaders never allow these angry souls to reduce our nation to a quarrelsome, rowdy free-for-all, where resort to decent public behaviour becomes a foreign concept to our ears.
Our sensible, respectable leaders must rise above the lawless fray these poor minds perpetuate among us. Exercising personal leadership, discipline, and noble restraint, our respectable leaders must build a Guyanese social space that is immune to these socially destructive types.
These people take advantage of human flaws in our society, of simple little frustrations and people peeves, to generate a national atmosphere filled with language that belittle our self-confidence, damage our morale and keep us feeling worthless.
They make people feel that even our freely and fairly elected Government is out to get us, that we’ve got nothing good going for us, that we can’t even govern ourselves. They don’t see their own wickedness, believing in their self-righteous self-aggrandisement that they are the epitome of virtue and morals, not seeing that their ways damage the Guyanese social landscape.
We seem not to be able to immune ourselves from this penchant of our free, fair, democratic Guyanese society to give voice to these people, who lack a spirit of contribution, collaboration, cooperation and solution-generation. In fact, they would sooner walk around with secret recorders looking for stuff to tear us down with, venting their poor souls on our society’s psyche, feeling important and worthy in their self-destructive self-importance.
Let’s beware of these trouble-makers, never allowing them to destroy the calm, peace and smooth flow of our national soul. The Guyanese nation enjoys the blessed, pastoral, peaceful, progressive atmosphere of a fertile, vibrant, alive land, filled with nature’s best. Why would we want to spoil this blessed life with these trouble-makers who seek only to tear down our blessed social space?
We’ve got to exercise the personal leadership and depth of character necessary to overcome this deformation of our society, in our personal self-leadership, until we create a public square that is immune from such crass ugliness, but yet free and fair and hums with the dynamic energy of sound national discussions, rational, open debates, and a sensible, inspiring flow of ideas, solutions and national conversations.