UNFORTUNATELY, the era in Guyana of deep intellectual profusion seems to be over. I was brought up in this country when intellectual discourses about international events were widespread. The people of Guyana at that time were exposed to intense discussions on international events.
In the late 1960s, the radio station had a five- minutes morning programme named, “Viewpoint” in which prominent Guyanese gave their take on many subjects of importance and many of the speakers would elaborate on international issues. I remember as a little boy, hearing a man named Shruti Kant talking about global issues.

I grew up and came to know Shruti. He was the principal of one of the most popular private high schools, Guyana Oriental College on Thomas Street between Middle Street and New Market Street opposite the Georgetown Hospital.
I owe it to Shruti Kant for what I am today. A really great human whose respect for helping others is not known in today’s Guyana. If I was ever part of a government in Guyana, I would have asked for something to be named after Shruti.
There is no discourse in Guyana today about impactful international stories whose theoretical underpinnings Guyanese should know about. Something of colossal importance passed in October this year without notice in Guyana.

The men who won the Nobel Prize for Economics have argued in their work that, in colonies where the Europeans settled, the colonial administrators treated the colonies better than in the colonies where they didn’t live but merely administered the territories for extractive purposes.
This explains why all the former White colonies – Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Malta – are more advanced economies today than the non-White post-colonial world. I don’t agree with the major theoretical thrust on development in the colonies by these authors but that point about White and non-White colonies needed to be mentioned.

Their seminal work is entitled, “Why Nations Fail.” I don’t agree with the central theme of that book which is shamelessly Euro-centric. I have a copy of that book so you can borrow it but return it. My phone# is 614-5927. My email is fredkissoon@yahoo.com
In her recently published memoir, Former German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, referred to something which has relevance to how the West sees the White world and the non-White world and it ties in with how the 2024 Nobel Prize winners in economics see the non-White world too.
Merkel noted that the former Eastern European communist countries want to see Russia disappear. She disagrees with that attitude indicating that Russia is too powerful to want to be wished away. But Merkel went on to add that she can understand how these countries feel because they resent how Russia treated them when Russia was known as the USSR.

I wrote a column on Merkel a few weeks ago after the publication of her memoir in which I referred to her as a hypocrite and she has shown clear signs of hypocrisy with her comment on the former communist nations. If the former Eastern European countries hate Russia because of mistreatment, then does Merkel understand how the former colonies feel about European imperialism?

The European empires engaged in extractive colonialism in which they perpetuated a slave system for the enrichment of Europe. After colonial hegemony was over, their domination of the post-colonial world became known as neo-colonialism. Guyana’s international economics scholar, Maurice Odle calls it the New Imperialism in his recently published autobiography, titled “An Eventful Life.”

I quote Odle at length: “The New Imperialism is not built on the possession of exploitative territories but on the access or command over territorial space… the New Imperialism is underpinned and enforced by both hard and soft power and includes military power, economic and financial power, diplomatic power and information/communications/propaganda power….When the West feels trade measures are not effective, it uses denial of access to loans in the international system and the International Financial Institutions (IFI); when this does not work, it resorts to weaponisation of the dollar….”

Merkel says she understands how the East European countries feel. But they are gone from Russian domination. They are now part of NATO and the EU. Odle, with his wide experience in working with the IFIs, informs us that Third World countries or the Global South are still at the mercy of our former colonial Leviathans.
The former colonies have their legal independence but the domination by the New Imperialism reduces that to a formality. Someone should inform Merkel to read that autobiography from Guyana and if and when she does, will she admit we have reason for resenting the New Imperialism.

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.