ON this day, 59 years ago, Guyana transitioned from a colony of Great Britain to a sovereign nation. It has been a long, long journey to 2025.
That journey must be described by people that endured it because the pain, agony, despair and pessimism have been unprecedented in the Caribbean, except for Haiti.
All of us over 50 years need to write down our experience living in Guyana in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s because our very young population needs to know what that journey was like and as they

reflect on it, one hopes that they promise themselves that they would see Guyana never return to that moment of nihilism.
It is when you live through the three decades I referred above then your anger becomes uncontrollable when you read a letter in the Stabroek News of November 13, 2020 in which 42 signatories including some known academics (living outside Guyana, of course, the past 30 years) demanded that Guyana get out of oil because the fossil fuel industry is destructive to the climate.

At 17, I entered politics. I am now 74, and in all those years, I can say with volcanic conclusiveness, that stupid letter will remain an agonizing thread in my soul. I know what Guyana was like from the 1970s onwards. I know the cry was ubiquitous – when will this country ever see a future.
We are shaping one now because oil has allowed us to enter the modern world. My friend of over fifty years, Pan-Africanist and political activist, Gerald Perreira, returned to Guyana last week after a few months abroad.

He told me he spent a month in Qatar. He said when you are in Qatar you are in the year 2095. That is what oil has done for Qatar the past 50 years.
This column here is a snippet of autobiography because my lamentation of how pessimistic Guyanese were three decades ago inevitably takes in my 26 years of teaching at Guyana’s only university.

When I look at what UG was when I started lecturing there in 1986 and the contents of my 26 years’ experience there – and I look at the extraordinary period we have reached in 2025 – my imagination runs wild.

In discussing and analysing what Guyana 40 years with anyone (including tonight on the Freddie Kissoon Show with my co-host, Leonard Craig), there is an incident that forms a fixed position in my mind.

I repeat here for the umpteen times that incident. I was driving into the campus, one evening and the student leader, Jason Benjamin came in front of the car and stopped me. I hadn’t seen him for weeks.

He told me he was on a visit to the University of the West Indies (UWI) campus in Jamaica.
Then emotions took hold of Jason.

He yelled out: “Freddie yuh should see dem people student gym, maan yuh gat to see wuh dem people gat.”
Jason was stunned at the modern gym at UWI compared to a literal shack UG had as a gym.
When I was the Vice-Chairman for the Union, I made representation to the UG administration for us to get an office.
They gave us one. It was an abandoned room where the cafeteria used to store cooking utensils. The place was dark and stink and couldn’t hold three persons at one time.

My 26 years of UG told the story of a broken country without any resemblance to what a modern university was like.
The young Guyanese who may read this column would say that I am exaggerating. UG did not even have printing paper.

Washroom facilities were completely absent. UG had nothing in those days except humans working there whilst under the most horrible conditions.
It was no different elsewhere in Guyana. Nothing was near modern in Guyana.

Look at where we are today. I drive through some obscure streets in Georgetown, and I see expensive buildings going up that one would never imagine 30 years ago.
Think of what is going up on the main streets. The New harbour Bridge is about to be completed. It is a graphic reminder that we have a future now.

It is important as we discuss 59 years of Independence to understand that we still have a far way to go to catch up to Qatar.
Those oil-rich havens had a far, longer jump than us but we have left 1970s far, far behind us.
The UG that I worked at and the Guyana that I lived in 30 years ago are gone.

When I was younger, I could not have enjoyed what was not there but my daughter and all Guyanese in 2025 will now.
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.