President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali has been bestowed with the Global Leadership Award in Ghana for his strong and transformational leadership since assuming the presidential office in August 2020.

To say that President Ali has done an outstanding job in promoting Guyana on the international stage would be an understatement. Indeed, he has demonstrated that when it comes to global leadership on fundamental issues affecting humanity, size does not matter. Guyana, with a population of less than one million people have been making waves on the international stage.

In accepting the award, President Ali said: “I accept this award on behalf of all our great ancestors who came from Africa and lay their bones on our shores in the name of freedom, just to realise human dignity; just to achieve freedom from the worst system the world has seen, that is a system of slavery. And I ask all of us to applaud our ancestors and what they have done to create a better world for us.”

President Ali has certainly done our ancestors proud. Only recently, he has been advocated strongly for reparations to be paid to Caribbean states that were involved integrally in slave trade.

Africa, despite the challenges consequent upon the impact of colonialism and neo-colonialism, has come a long way in terms of economic growth and development. This is well documented by the late Dr. Walter Rodney in his seminal work ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’.

It is indeed significant that African leaders have seen it fit to give such a prestigious award to Guyana’s President Dr. Ali whose strong advocacy for a new global order has been unrelenting. The Award also took into account the strong and unwavering commitment of President Ali to his ‘One Guyana’ vision based on the lofty principles of national unity, inclusivity and shared prosperity. It also recognises his strong leadership during the period of heightened tension due to the border controversy between Guyana and Venezuela.

In his acceptance speech, President Ali shared some thoughts on the commonality of the historical struggles Africa and Guyana encountered, one that was based on divide and rule machinations and imperial domination.

But society has evolved a long way since those years. Indeed, as pointed out by President Ali, there is today a much higher level of tolerance and acceptance along the lines of oneness and multiculturalism. The fact that Guyana now has a Muslim President in the person of President Ali is one such manifestation. Muslims as we know is a minority religious group in Guyana but was elected by an overwhelming majority to the highest political office in the land.

There are regrettably some who are still stuck in the past and are finding it difficult to rise above parochialism and ethnocentrism. They still continue to harbour illusions of a divine right to control the narrative on the issue of race, ethnicity and politics. Time and history, however, is moving past such thinking and those harbouring such views will certainly be being left behind.