Dear Editor

TO SAY that Guyana is losing its soul would be to suggest that it had one. Maybe it did. I might seem cynical, but I really do not remember when it did possess one. Of course I have zero credibility from which to judge Guyana!I left Guyana when I was just a teen, and came back in the heart of all the claims of political and corporate corruption and killings. When I was leaving in 1985, LFS Burnham had just died, the country was grossly impoverished, and it was beginning to be catapulted into a desperate power struggle among the PNC heavy hitters -– Hamilton Green, and his crew and Desmond Hoyte, and his crew. (I am yet to be properly schooled as to why Mr. Burnham chose Mr. Hoyte over Mr. Green)

I am 48 years old now, and I have lived outside of Guyana collectively for about half that time. The Guyana I knew under Burnham for 16 years, then Jagdeo for 4 years, then Ramotar for 3 years, and now Granger for 1 year has failed to impress me that it has soul. The closest we came to having a soul was in the few months leading up to the last national elections, and in the days immediately following.

There seems to have been an unparalleled amount of expectation and hopefulness. Change was in the air. But now the honeymoon is over, and the country seems to have reverted to the search for its soul.

Over the last few months, I have travelled to Essequibo and Berbice and met with folks from Linden and Georgetown, and for the most part the thinking is unanimous — the search for the country’s soul continues.

Notwithstanding the bugbear of unemployment and financial stagnation, our political leaders continue their unrelenting, unreasonable and unpatriotic onslaught against each other. On the one hand, the PPP continues to fret about the audits. How could a political party not feel one iota of responsibility for the billions of dollars that have been misspent, stolen, and otherwise misappropriated under its watch?

Then, on the other hand, the Coalition, conducting the audits with all that damning evidence, continues to let bygones be bygones. We were told that the consequences for those deviant and ‘crookish’ behaviours are that those responsible would never be able to steal billions from the tax payers again. Of course that is while this Government is in power, because the PPP is saying clearly that those audits are vindictive, witch-hunting and fake. In other words, no one did anything wrong. So, if or when the PPP returns to power, there will be no need to change anything, and the skullduggery would be allowed to continue unabated for another 23 years.

The soullessness of Guyana was again seen when some Guyanese tied up some fellow Guyanese, strapped them to anchors, and dropped them into the Atlantic Ocean. Those dead men were fathers and sons and brothers and friends. They had people who loved and depended on them. But there are those who are so heartless that those facts do not matter.

The soullessness continued with some Guyanese throwing a grenade at some fellow Guyanese while they gathered to reflect on the life of their dear friend. And as the story was breaking, rather than the Opposition sticking to condemning the terrorist act, they said that the act was perpetrated by the very people who were there gathered. In other words, the people threw the grenade on themselves!

I was not the least surprised by the Opposition people’s response. The generally accepted behaviour of those in this soulless country is that no one should ever be held accountable for any act of terror. The notion is that Dr. Walter Rodney killed himself; Ronald Waddell killed himself; Satyadeow Shaw killed himself; Courtney Crum-Ewing killed himself; and if that grenade had exploded and some people had died, it would have been concluded that they would have definitely killed themselves.

The acceptable political norm in Guyana is that if you oppose anyone in power, you are literally killing yourself.

In a country without a soul, any wrongdoing is justifiable; no one has a right to oppose anyone or anything. Politicians, especially, want to be left alone, no matter how rotten and autocratic their policies. The masses are asked to tolerate all their misgivings, with never an occasional apology for their mistakes.

Not one of our leaders would apologise to their subjects. Not one of them! We elect gods! The most ridiculous behaviours are explained away, as our collective intelligence is insulted. And if you dare speak out against their wrongdoings, you become marked for death. And anyone has licence to hurt you. The name of the game is absolute power, and any act engaged in deriving and maintaining that power is permissible. And the henchmen who carry out those dastardly deeds find refuge in the bosom of like-minded thinkers and the intellectual authors.

It is obvious that the killers and supporters of the killers of Rodney, Waddell, Shaw, Crum-Ewing and the myriad of others are still out there. What is also very obvious is that those who wanted to kill the folks at Kaieteur News and the killers’ supporters are still out there. But in a soulless country, lip service will forever be given to any detailed search for the intellectual authors of our murdered citizens. After all, we all want power, so we all want each other dead. If I investigate you, you might investigate me, and then the game will be over. What fun is there in that?

We have never been a country with a real soul; why pretend now? So we arrest the underlings and pretend we have the culprits, while the real culprits are left to kill more of us.
The first day a real culprit, an intellectual author of any of the high profile killings in Guyana, is arrested, charged and sentenced, the country will breathe a collective sigh and we will start to live. But until then, the average man in the street will continue to pattern his life from those at the top. He will take his lead from the bigger culprits, and the murders and assassinations will continue in this soulless nation. Mark my words.
Regards,
PASTOR W. P. JEFFREY
Practical Christianity Ministries