By Ronald Austin Jr
ON February 6th, the world was invited to Guyana to attend the inaugural Guyana International Petroleum Business Summit and Exhibition (GIPEX) 2018. Every citizen was bursting with unrestrained excitement. This was the first signal that the nascent oil and gas economy was real. This summit raised negative anxieties and revealed that there are those who would never wish well for their country if they are not the ones controlling the power and wealth.

When you read about the practice of politics in the Roman Empire, you have no choice but to envision a cauldron of insatiable personal ambitions that eclipsed allegiance to country. Human societies have undergone monumental transformational changes since the existence of the Roman Empire 100 bc-400 ad, socially, politically, economically and technologically. It is a wonderful fact to reflect upon, with all those centuries and changes, human nature has not altered. In today’s world, we still see the personal pursuit of power and political ambitions taking precedence over the allegiance to country.

This narrow determination that sometimes afflict men and women of consequence, becomes so intense, they are willing to sacrifice country if their desires are not achieved. These men and women are the unforeseen enemies of the Republic who live within the gates and are the most dangerous because they do not appear to be the conventional enemies of the Republic. This column will discuss the enemies inside the gates of the Republic in the context of an unpatriotic advertisement that appeared in both major newspapers on the opening of the GIPEX summit.

Based on what I know, the battle for power between Marcus Tullius Cicero and Catiline is the perfect exemple to illustrate the point of this column. This epic historical clash epitomises the pursuit of personal ambition and power with little regard for country captured admirably in the Catilinarian Orations to the Roman Senate in 63 BC. Catiline was determined to wrest the position of Consulship from Cicero and embarked on a campaign to gain power at any cost; this crusade was unprecedented and was fraught with the passion of 10,000 suns, most worthy of the note of any student of politics.

Marcus Tullius Cicero engaged in public campaigns to reveal the machinations of Catiline and his speech to the Roman Senate has been bequeathed to posterity as a fine warning of the dangers of the unsuspecting enemies of the Republic inside the gates of the Republic:

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”-Marcus Tullius Cicero 63 BC.

Pay close attention to the above-mentioned as I now bring into the discussion to February 6th, 2018. On February 6th, Guyanese opened their newspapers to arguably the most ominous unpatriotic advertisement in modern times that distastefully read:
‘Investors beware, go invest elsewhere’.

This dastardly act took place on the day of the opening of the GIPEX 2018, the inaugural initiative to promote Guyana’s petroleum sector. This summit invoked the spirit of Catiline who I mentioned above, among men with wicked projects and plots. The spirit of the pursuit of power with no care for country, the spirit that says if I don’t get my way, I am willing to take the whole country down in the process.

This dark advertisement was essentially designed to hurt the government of the day and deny the country much-needed investment. Most persons were flummoxed; they wanted to know how could anyone who recites the National Pledge and anthem of Guyana engage in this extreme lack of dedication to country? I once heard that a politician is the only specie that would cut off his nose to spoil his face.

I once read that men would chase power regardless of the consequences and partake in a march of folly (Tuchman:1984). I described above how Roman politics displayed Machiavellian politics in its worst form, but never could I have conceived that in this modern time in Guyana, patriotism and commitment to country could be dashed and crashed in one fell swoop in this dismissive fashion. So what was behind the manifestation of a naked, unbridled campaign for power reminiscent of the Romans’ days?

Mustering all that I have grasped from political classes at the University of Guyana and being an observer of politics, both international and local, for some time, I will posit that the prospects of an oil and gas economy has introduced an unprecedented political economic paradigm.

The political party that controls Guyana’s transition to an oil and gas economy teems with the potential to gain enough political capital to spend for possibly the next 30 years. It is clear, that those who are presently outside of power, see the status quo and the 2020 elections as existential threats. It is in this context that the anti-nationalist advertisement emerged on the day of the opening of GIPEX.

I am of the view that a group of power-hungry politicians and businessmen met in a smoke-filled room and conjured up the ghosts of Romanesque politics and this unpatriotic advertisement became manifest.
What more will come as we get closer to the 2020 elections? To what extreme will political hustling go to achieve Machiavellian ends? The ambitions of men know no boundaries when chasing money and power, it happened in Rome centuries ago and it will continue to happen wherever human nature exists.

While we look beyond our borders to identify and nullify threats to the Republic, let us not rule out the possibility that the biggest threats to the Republic may dwell within the gates of the Republic, singing the National Anthem and reciting the National Pledge.