Dear Editor,
The deep socio-political and ethnic divide that has reached the surface once again in Guyana is the making of a handful of politicians who continue use racism and fear to galvanise their main support bases. Make no mistake about it, the root cause of racism in Post-Independent Guyana is not the colonial legacy of racism in Guyana, it is a tactic used by several Guyanese politicians seeking political power and the socioeconomic privileges that political power in Guyana has come to symbolize.
It is no longer about service to the people; the current political system is an exclusionary system used by these very politicians to enrich themselves, strategic allies in the private sector, inter alia, at the expense of working-class Guyanese, the vast majority of the electorate whom said colonial-minded politicians depend on for votes. Read another way, we working-class Guyanese support the very system and people we complain about daily and say need to change to be more inclusive, responsive to the public and less violent. Still yet, read another way, we foolishly create and recreate the main political problems (removing the Westminster model, elected constituency-based Parliamentarians instead of selecting them from a list, reform of our Constitution to enshrine more inclusive governance at the Cabinet level in particular, removal of the executive empowers of the Presidency etc.) we complain about every five years in-between electoral cycles.
We know that in Guyana, functional literacy, domestic violence, violence against women, bullyism and a largely unskilled workforce are all pressing matters that require urgent strategic and long-term programming. But we Guyanese invest more time in supporting the programmes of political parties more than we invest time and resources supportive of less violent and racist society, improved road safety and compliance with traffic laws, depletion of the very natural resources (gold, forest/trees etc.) we depend on for sustenance and income. Guyanese, fix your priorities and you will fix the country!
Regards,
R. Small
Source: https://issuu.com/guyanachroniclee-paper/docs/guyana_chronicle_e-paper_01_04_2020