As schoolchildren we cut our eyeteeth on the history of civilizations, the march of empires. I used to be fascinated by those thin, dry lines in the textbooks, which spoke of tribal treachery, weakening, and the inevitable conquest and collapse that came. It was fascinating to absorb the storied names of history and their exploits, only for revulsion to come, when the exact same treacheries and barters, craven partnerships and cheap rewards, have become the essence of our own times, via our own Guyanese conspiracies and collaborations, and resulting in the now all but lost paradise of oil Guyana. History does live and relive through the Ages.
I ignore the Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, and Medes. I begin arbitrarily with the Romans. There were the tense accounts of Julius Caesar with the Gallic (French) tribes and the Black Forest Teutons (Germans). In each account, we read without a second thought of bargains and sellouts of neighboring tribes by other tribalists in their wide communities. The tribal sellers gave short thrift to the sacred natures of home and hearth, of what belongs to us (them), and which should never be bartered for cheap gain. Call it divide and conquer; I prefer treacherous tribal positioning for ascendancy, hegemony, supremacy and prosperity. Fast forward to Cortez and the New World, the British Raj in India, the American and British slavers in Africa, the Germans in Vichy France and Quisling Scandinavia, and there is a common thread that is long, broad, and thick.
It is that there is always a group of natives which calculates, then plunges into collaboration and traitorship. The local group allies and identifies with the foreign invaders. In Africa, they were the tribal slave sellers; in India, they were the Maharajahs, Nawabs, Nabobs, Rajas, Subahdars, and Zamindars. The story is of the princely pawning their place of birth and their people for personal prestige and prosperity. The instruments of grand proconsular and colonial visions have been paternalization, incentives, religion, race, discontent, and history. This is what we have in Guyana today, and ours is race.
The foreigners (ABC&E) and they don’t even have to ask, stand in their stirrups, crack a whip, and Guyanese fall in line to kowtow like Far Easterners under ancient imperial yokes. Guyanese brutalize Guyanese. Guyanese denigrate Guyanese. Guyanese disembowel and discard Guyanese; and all for the favor of the fair, their twitch of approval. His burden is lessened; we do his dirty work for him, and willingly, zealously. In politics and media and business, some Guyanese are proud to be the frontrunners and spear-carriers to maul or maim their fellow Guyanese.
There is the PPP. It once hated anything and everything American and Western European; today, its fawning members couldn’t love their enslavers more, there is abject bowing before the new colonialism and sweet capitalism still more. They cannot bow enough, brownnose enough, and lick boots enough. Indeed, Guyanese have transformed into the most picturesque people anywhere in the world. We can’t betray too swiftly, and sell too smartly. Darren Woods does not have more loyal sycophants in Texas, and Alistair Routledge higher jumpers in tropical Guyana. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar would be proud.
