AS WE usher in the new year, Guyanese should be thankful that we have survived another challenging year as a nation. That we have made it to 2020, with our national institutions intact, is due in no small measure to our collective resolve to remain together as a national community under one flag and one government. The challenges of the last year from within and beyond our borders have no doubt strengthened our will to fulfill our motto of One People, One Nation with a Common Destiny. Our resolve was tested in 2019, but we overcame the hurdles.

In a real sense, the year 2020 is a date with destiny; the destiny originally charted by our ancestors as they contended with forces aimed at destroying their very humanity. Through it all, they remained hopeful that, ultimately, the curse of exploitation and want will one day flee from the face of this nation. As we welcome the early days of 2020, the winds of expectancy and change are already blowing all around us. This year, we begin the march towards the realisation of our ancestors’ dreams of a free people living in a land of plenty. This new year is the moment when those dreams will begin to become a reality for all Guyanese, regardless of race, creed, sex or social status.

The early months of this new year would again test our ability to compete in national harmony as we engage in the electoral exercise to determine who governs this nation in the first half of the new decade. From all indications, it promises to be yet another hard-fought campaign in which the contestants put their cases before the nation. This publication is confident that at the end of the day, all Guyanese would be winners, as the results of an election are not all that characterise a nation. We have come too far to allow partisan bitterness to dismantle what was erected by the blood and sweat of those before us.

As we hinted above, this would be the first year of petro-dollars. While being mindful of the possible pitfalls of the new dispensation, we have to be positive and hopeful about the outcomes. The merchants of doom must not be allowed to manipulate and dominate the national consciousness. Freedom demands a push-back against agents of pessimism about our national capacity to exist in a state of plenty. For too long, we have been conditioned to believe that Guyana could never rise above our historical afflictions. Let 2020 be the year when we stand erect as a nation, and not crawl on our knees, begging for scraps from someone’s table.

The challenges would be many, mistakes would be made, and doubts would surface, but those should not determine the final outcome. Let 2020 be the year when we begin again to see ourselves as equal to all and not inferior to any other nation. We may not be able to stop the global wars or determine the motion of the global markets, but we sure can be masters of our own little sacred space. Self-determination of nations still matters.
Let 2020 be the year when we show ourselves and the world that multi-ethnicity is not a curse but a blessing. God and history have brought our diverse groups to this land under different circumstances. But we are here, and have nowhere else to call home. Out of our diverse tapestry, let us continue to forge a common purpose and ethos that speak to our shared and equal humanity.

And let 2020 be the year when we look into the mirror and ask ourselves what benefits there are from killing ourselves on the roadways. We cannot continue to pretend that we have not turned our roadways into killing fields. There must be something in the national psyche that pulls us in the opposite direction. Let 2020 be the year when we return love and carefulness to our roadways. In the same spirit, let 2020 be the year when we take another look at child abuse and spousal abuse. We cannot be a modern nation when we can settle differences only with violence. The nation’s women and children, like its males, must be guaranteed the right to life and all that comes with that God-given right. Surely, we can be better angels. Happy New Year to all.