WHAT happened to the Guyana I know when I was a UG student. I attended literally countless symposia at UG on a vast array of international and regional issues whose speakers were top-class academics. I would leave UG and go to several symposia on the same stories at places like the City Hall, The Bishop’s High School, etc.

Today, such a country does not exist. Dr. Desmond Thomas, long-standing regional economist who lectures at UG said on the Freddie Kissoon Show he could not get two academics from the Faculty of Social Sciences or the Department of Law to join in a symposium on constitutional reform. Today in Guyana, the academic ambience whereby young minds can be nurtured to understand subordination and dominance in the international system has faded. Cheddi Jagan is dead. Walter Rodney is dead. And intellectual stimulation is dead.
One of the topics that need exploring in this country is the Schengen visa of the European Union (EU) which is a requirement for Guyanese. It is a requirement that makes absolutely no sense, has no logical reason to exist, and is a suppression of reality in the relationship among states in the international system.

If you ask any diplomat or any ruling politician within the EU why there is such a visa condition for Guyana, despite their huge qualifications and vast experience in government, they cannot give a straightforward intellectual answer. There is no political, economic, and security reason for imposing an EU visa condition on Guyanese.

There are three determinants why a migrant would leave Guyana and remain illegal in another land. One is the culture. There has to be a similar cultural environment that would make the illegal person psychologically comfortable. The second one is the nationality factor. The illegal migrant could secure safety and economic sustenance among the people that are from his/her homeland. Thirdly, there has to be a geography whereby he/she would not stand out.

Given those three criteria, no Guyanese would leave the UK, Canada and the US and seek to remain illegal in any EU country. It is literally or virtually impossible for someone from this country to live illegally in any EU nation when there is no visa restriction for Guyanese to go to the UK.
The choice to do so is scientifically an insane one. There are thousands of Guyanese in the UK some of whom are very well placed financially. The Deputy Leader of the ruling party in the UK is from Guyanese parents.  Why would any Guyanese leave New York and seek an illegal residence in any EU country? One of every five people in New York City is a Guyanese.

The more you study the EU visa imposition on Guyanese, the more it appears as undiluted ignorance. It is silly and should be abolished ASAP. No Guyanese now or in the future will leave Canada, UK and US and seek out illegal employment in Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Portugal, Luxemburg and the list goes on.

The minute a Guyanese living illegally in Italy or Germany or France enters a café and points to a pastry because he cannot speak the language, the police will be summoned. No employer is going to look at a Guyanese in Poland or Germany or Italy and employ him. They will call the police.
Let’s go to India and Africa. Those are the places our peoples originated from. In all my life living in Guyana, I have never heard once a Guyanese contemplate hiding in India or Africa to live and work. If we do not want to live as illegal migrants in Africa and India where we look like the locals, why are we going to stay as illegal workers in Norway, Sweden, Finland, France, etc?

If you take a scientifically controlled poll and you put on the questionnaire the countries that a Guyanese would hide and live in order to make a living and the countries listed are all the EU nations, plus Canada, the UK, the US, no one would tick off any nation in the EU including the two that speak English- Ireland and Malta.

So why is there an EU visa to travel to Europe? Because it is the way the West has seen the non-white world for centuries. They think we are culturally inferior. Do you know a self-sponsored Guyanese to Canada has to take an English language test? The educated class in CARICOM, speaks more fluent Standard English than people from some parts of the UK, Ireland, and the US. The colonial perception of the former colonies will never die, but the peoples of the Global South have to ignore the West and embrace India and China.
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.