HERE are the words of Melinda Janki: “When Guyana’s politicians embraced the delusion of oil wealth, Ramon Gaskin looked the oil curse in the face and spat at it.” A woman who is trained as a lawyer could utter this ignorance. As for Ramon Gaskin, I will follow up on my November 1993 Stabroek News column on him very soon.

Janki has given off one of the most ignorant statements a human in the post-colonial world could utter, and in the coming days and weeks and months, there will be no attempt by the intellectual spheres of this country to educate the very young population of Guyana on why Janki’s outlook is not only ignorant, but contains all the evil seeds of colonial indoctrination that, after 60 years of Independence, still plague the minds of those psychologically unable to see the light of day.
Let us attempt to bring some knowledge to our young population, so that they could understand the remnants of the colonial mentality that millions died fighting against since slavery, right up to the violent overthrow of European imperial subjugation after the end of World War II. We will break down Janki’s sordid mental gymnastics into several parts, and look at the asininity of each dimension. We start with the word “delusion”.

Janki refers to the “delusion of oil wealth”. Any primary school child knows that delusion is not reality, and exists in imaginative form. A delusion is a hope that lies in the womb of impossibility. We can refer to the delusion of a Bermuda Summer Olympics; it will never happen, because the Summer Olympics takes billions of American dollars to hold, and the land mass to accommodate the games have to be much more that the few square miles that Bermuda consists of. It is the nurturing of a delusion to think Antigua or Barbados or Fiji or Singapore can hold the Summer Olympics.

How can one refer to the export sector of a country as the delusion of wealth when it brings in income for the country? Is Silicone Valley in the US a delusion of wealth? The answer is no, because Silicone Valley is a top earner in the world for the US. Is there the delusion of wealth for the software industry of India? The answer is no, because India is the world’s largest software exporter.
Is there the delusion of wealth in China’s export of rare earth elements (REEs)? REEs are 17 elements that are indispensable in high-tech industries. The US is heavily dependent on REEs. China is responsible for 58 per cent of REEs mining, and is the world’s largest producer, with other countries coming in a poor second. China’s main supplier is the United States. Can one speak of the delusion of REEs wealth?
Guyana has large deposits of oil, the bulk of which is yet to be touched. It exports this material that has made some Middle East countries the richest nations in the world. With giants like India and China, which have successfully challenged European and American dominance in the global economy, Guyana’s oil is needed in addition to our traditional buyer: The US.

Since the successful production of oil, the economy of Guyana has literally taken off. The transfer of oil wealth into the public sphere has been phenomenal. The Georgetown Public Hospital is unrivaled in the Caribbean. Very expensive treatments, surgical operations, and pharmaceuticals are available at that hospital for free. Twelve new hospitals are in the process of being constructed. New schools located in areas that were not financially possible before Guyana had an oil economy are being built. Efforts are underway to make studies at UG free.

The bulk of money behind these projects did not come from sugar or agriculture or sea food export; it came from oil. How then it is possible to speak of the delusion (the fiction; the imagination) of oil wealth when Guyana is getting that wealth which will peak fantastically from 2028 onwards.

It is an attractive sociological argument to discuss how oil wealth will be distributed in a country, but to speak about the delusion of oil wealth is unadulterated ignorance and unprecedented asininity. If Gaskin spat at the oil curse, he was perhaps spitting at the curse he always harboured in his psyche since I knew him 54 years ago.
Ms. Janki said the politicians have embraced the delusion of wealth. The entire country of Guyana has welcomed the oil industry. It is not the politicians, but the Guyanese nation as a whole. Maybe Janki did an imaginary poll that showed Guyanese see oil as a curse.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.