During his Inaugural Address at the Ceremonial Opening of the Twelfth Parliament on 11th February 2021, amid much fanfare, President Ali announced the establishment of a One Guyana Commission. He said:
“I propose to give meaning to my call for “One Guyana” by requesting the Leader of Government Business in the National Assembly, Prime Minister, Brigadier, the Honourable Mark Phillips, to introduce, for adoption, an Act of Parliament establishing a “One Guyana Commission” which he will head.
As the great West Indian philosopher, C.L.R. James, puts it: “A nation is built not on abstraction, but on tackling and solving the problems which occupy its people.”
The purpose of the Commission would be to try to do just that in relation to the practical steps we can take to cement our one society, encompassing and respecting the diversity from which our “oneness” springs. The work of the Commission would be countrywide, and it would listen to the free expressions of all voices, concerning ways in which every Guyanese can honour their ancestral heritage while giving the highest regard to our blended Guyanese civilisation.
Among the matters which it would address include education concerning our history; our religions; how we ensure equal opportunities for education, employment, and entrepreneurship, and the institutional strengthening of the existing Ethnic Relations Commission to make it more effective.
In all this, we must be guided by the wisdom of Nelson Mandela that: “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.“
Two years later and it appears that the Commission has suffered the fate of a stillborn. There is no doubt that the idea was, and still is a good one. Such a Commission has the potential to serve as a catalyst for national healing and reconciliation, something that is badly needed if we are truly to become one people, in one nation, sharing one destiny. It could provide a safe space for Guyanese from all walks of life to express their hopes, fears, anger and insecurities, and act as a release valve to the seething tension that is palpable across this nation.
The alacrity with which the Government has moved to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars on Commissions of Inquiry and other triumphalist endeavors, suggests that their focus is on domination and control. It suggests that talk of healing and reconciliation of this nation is just lip service. If he is serious about building national unity, Irfaan Ali needs to put the money where his mouth is.
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