I ONCE wrote that not even in the United States where there are crazy minds saying crazy things about politics and the government are there more insane expressions about politics than in Guyana.
Guyana has discovered oil which can bring out poverty alleviation on a huge scale, but actual humans, not jungle beasts, have openly called for the immediate cessation of oil production because Guyana must play its part in saving the climate.
It never occurred to these limited minds that Guyana must play its part in seeing humans have food to eat, water to drink, employment to earn money and schools to send their children to be educated. The Stabroek News in an editorial a few months ago referred to Charrandass Persaud as a disgraced person.
But the same newspaper publishes constant commentaries by a lady, Dr Janet Bulkan, who appealed to the OAS to intervene to stop oil production in Guyana. Those who call for the removal of the oil industry with tragic consequences for Guyana, should that happen, are feted rather than seen the way Stabroek News sees Charran.
Professor Clive Thomas described the mentality of those who want Guyana to come out of the fossil-fuel industry as “crass inhumanity.” For the record, I do not see Charran as a disgrace, and for the record, Dr Bulkan does not speak for me and 99.99 per cent of this nation. Now let’s examine more expressions of mental ugliness that does not exist in other societies.
Since the Mahdia tragedy, the vultures have come out like worms crawling out of the woodwork. These worms are presented with an opportunity to express their anti-government ramblings. We are told that the dormitory’s windows should not have been grilled.
It cannot occur to such tiny minds that the grills have protected those 60 female teenagers from depraved men who would easily have broached the unprotected windows. And if that had happened, the same corrugated minds would have exclaimed; “why were the windows not grilled.”
Why the perimeters of rich people’s houses have deadly razor fences? I live in a compound where all the houses of diplomats and oil-industry officials are protected by frighteningly looking razor fences. If there is a fire, and the gates cannot be opened, you will be cut into pieces trying to jump over the fence.
There are some dangerous anti-government lunatics in this country, the likes you will not find elsewhere. The Mahdia inferno was not caused by a faulty electric wire that was ignored. It was not caused by an overheating fan that was ignored. It was not caused by a gas stove that the matron left on while being outside the building.
The blaze was deliberately set by a student who became angry after being disciplined. In the United States, there are dozens (not one or two) who are aged between 14 and 16 who have either killed or seriously injured other people.
Now the editor of a newspaper allowed a commentator to write that Guyanese are laying the blame on the teenager rather than on the government. Can one imagine a fire was deliberately set and 19 lives were lost and a newspaper allows in print the view that we should not blame the arsonist, but the government?
This same commentator criticises the president for appearing with the survivors, something that is commonsensical and occurs in every country in the world where such tragedies occur. The limited mind of that opinion-maker cannot see that when the leadership of a nation embraces the survivors of a huge tragedy, it symbolizes that the government cares and that in turn invokes the compassion of the nation.
The degeneracy of some sections of this nation is beyond incredible. A fire was set; 19 children lost their lives and even while the fire was still shooting into the skies, ugly minds went on a rampage to blame the government. It was the most bestial politicization of a painful tragedy in the 21st century anywhere in the world.
It was Mr Ralph Ramkarran, a member of an opposition party and certainly not a government supporter, who on writing on Mahdia penned these lines; “The politicization of the tragedy started the next morning. Placards demanding “justice” and “compensation,” obviously orchestrated, appeared in an organized display, a few held by children too young to be able to read them.”
This is the season of the May-June rainy period. I fear if there is thunder and lightning and a tree fell onto a moving bus, and people die, there will be calls for Irfaan to resign because he should have known trees fall when it rains and he should have cut down all the trees before May.