Guyana’s business is every Guyanese business

Dear Editor,
Welcome home. You know you’re at home in Guyana when, “mouth open story jump out.” Ole people say, “you can’t please everybody at the same time.” Of course, “who vex, vex” but each person knows best how to run their home. But, as usual, it’s your neighbour who is always peeping and seeking into your affairs and always seems to know better than you. Good old Tradewinds say, “is yu friend, is yu friend.” But Guyana’s business becomes everybody’s business and more so, it is the business of each Guyanese and they have a birth right to know it. There will be no more secrets and surprises and there will no more underhand dealings with any one per cent and two per cent contracts and agreements. There will no more closed-door arrangements and hidden clauses in the fine writing. Guyana will be pursuing the real source to reveal who authorised and approved the signing of those oil contracts and why the “negotiators” (conspirators/saboteurs) signed and settled for less and not more. Surinam is mocking and laughing at our silliness and stupidity. No wonder Mr. Lowenfield is facing three criminal charges because of the professional advice given to him from legal luminaries who are such experts that they caused Guyanese to be “short changed!” That remains a “hot cake” topic and it is everybody’s business. Guyanese have a sensitive nose and they smell a rat.

The twenty-three cabinet members took the oath of office and will form the formidable nucleus to lead and manage the affairs of this country. Notable omissions remain room for speculation and consideration. Perhaps, it gives Guyanese a chance to “wager the tongue” and hold their own court. When you’re outside, you always want to have your “two cents say” because you know better. No need to get red in the face because it may be an innate attitude or simply a Guyanese thing. Guyanese culture is so colorful that it will make the rainbow blush with envy! When one demits office, the successor is always bombarded with suggestions, ideas, advice, warnings and criticisms. It is a natural expectation and the wise one will be well armed not to be surprised. The smart one will not be offended and will lend an ear with an open mind, listen, consume, digest, dissect and then react.

It is already day five for business and those who are not minding the store are feeling out of place with nothing to do and all day to do it. In fact, the soothsayers are busy prognosticating a forecast graphing a chart full of doom and gloom for future events. The naysayers are occupied with flowcharting the maximum level of cynicism and skepticism, leaving no room to accommodate a break-even point for potentials and denials. The marginalisation of possibility, probability, potentiality, plausibility and eventuality are completely incorporated and not overlooked by opposing forces bent on destruction rather than construction.

The APNU+AFC Party has already written off the budding talents of a young embryo and castigated the blooming effervescence of reliability. The one-track impatience of this unreasonable discord promises the seed for no change and deeper insanity. The very element that announced the rollcall for a youthful presence is immediately planting the seed of dissent and discouragement for the very substance that they were advocating. Joseph Harmon, on Monday, said that, “New and energetic young people have emerged to take over the helm of the coalition to engage in “aggressive politics” against the People’s Progressive Party (PPP)-led administration.” How ironic if not comical. Hiding behind the empty proclamation of “rubberstamp” and “one-man authoritarian rule” is substantially flawed and should be dismissed as only the “normal rhetoric.” But, supposedly, the circus show continues and there is no rest for the wicked and the performers. The audience, unfortunately, is groomed with boredom. Five months of transition as a rebel taught not a single lesson in precaution, prevention and hesitation but the mastery of shooting oneself in the foot from the lip and not the hip. The voice of pompous dissent has completely written off the “hodge-podge of misfits and Jagdeo loyalists.” How intriguing, interesting and entertaining the showcase of hilarity promises to be in parliament! Not an iota of courtesy for respect and reservation is contemplated but a promise of hostility and arrogance to be displayed. Shouldn’t a person be allowed an opportunity to prove himself or herself for at least a year? Five years in office as a failure and the intolerable still clamored for another chance! The audacity of such an odyssey is such a travesty! But, supposedly, it’s all in a day’s job and you have to earn your keep, so, you can say anything and everything that comes to the mouth even if it is nonsensical. Then, again, it’s only one’s opinion.

The wound is still raw and there is much pain without an immediate cure like COVID-19. The APNU+AFC Party is daily struggling for composure and is fighting a losing battle. The call for remorse, recouping, regrouping and reconstructing is not within the ambit of logical compassion but plastered in disgruntled animosity. There is a sore point of individual sulking and skulking in the privacy of cornered lonesomeness and aggravation playing the blame game, daily feeding on vengeance. Rational behaviour is not within the confines of tolerance, no wonder the sudden outburst of “busing” vulgarity; “witch-hunt” squad and hurling insults at the new cabinet. These are all manifestations of a sour hereditary and characteristics of bitterness and poor sportsmanship. But Mr. Harmon was right, this crop of youth that the PPP/C party has bred will not tolerate “nonsense” and will aggressively pursue a program to advertise obsolete value versus transitory value and significant value versus inconsequential value. This Guyana represents a plenitude of youthfulness, a generation who can think for themselves, who will not be fooled, who have good judgmental value, who have already demonstrated responsibility, who will not be bullied, who are already being persuaded by reality and who display the tendency to be influenced by pragmatism and not dogmatism. They are ranting, rearing and roving to stampede forward with an agenda for tomorrow’s needs today and not yesterday’s despairs tomorrow. A new Guyana sensitises consciously the desire to rationalise reasonably and chastises the dormancy of recklessness while flouncing carelessness. Welcome to a vibrant and challenging Guyana that can now make a soft bed to lie on.

Respectfully,
Jai Lall

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