Reflecting on the sad state of affairs of our beloved country, Guyana, my thoughts lighted on Marvin Gaye’s album: ‘What’s Going On.’
In the 1970s, Marvin Gaye did the song, What’s Going On. The song opens with the sound of noise of a party; it’s a welcome for a Vietnam veteran. However, in the shadow of the celebration was a certain anxiety. It was a time when Marvin Gaye was going through a crisis. He noticed that his brother Frankie, who had at that time returned from Vietnam, had a different outlook; he had changed. He empathised with his brother and wrote a song that certainly stands among the most revolutionary lyrics.
Essentially, the song, “What’s Going On” looked at the forces shaping American culture at the beginning of the 70s. That period when hippie- era idealism crashed into the realities of poverty, of drug abuse, of war and racial tensions and misunderstanding, and the push by many Americans to have the government pay more attention to political, economic and social justice at the domestic level.
We transport the American reality to Guyana and almost 50 years later there are striking similarities. Ours is a society that has failed to keep pace with human development, largely in part by an uncaring, visionless and corrupt government, stumbling senselessly from crisis to crisis, leaving all right- thinking and decent Guyanese asking themselves, a similar question, “what’s going on?”
Guyana- a resource rich land-has become stunted and restricted by a political regime that has adopted a do-nothing policy even in the face of glaring signs of decay and decadence in its own curtilage. Its policy of structural discrimination, inequality and unfairness has clashed with the people’s legitimate expectations of good quality of life, fairness and justice for the people.
For all the spending and infrastructural works the quality of life has not improved for ordinary Guyanese. Vulnerable communities are oozing with poverty and frustration. Our time- honoured traditions, our civic- pride, our decency, our high standards as a people, are crumbling before our very eyes. In the face of a cost- of- living crisis, the government seems to have an insatiable appetite for crises. It is behaving like Master Willy in the mud; he would not get out because he liked it.
Let us take a slice of three months [April May and June] from the current already three and a half years’ reign [2020, 2021, 2022, 2023] of this totalitarian regime. In April, Mae Toussaint Thomas, who serves as the Permanent Secretary of the Home Affairs Ministry, returned to Guyana after being arrested for interrogation, and had her mobile phone seized, by U.S Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents at the Miami International Airport. Also, the U.S agency reportedly cancelled Thomas’s visa, forcing her to take a different transit route back to Guyana.
To date, the government has failed to provide information about this issue to its citizens. But this officer continues to serve as the Permanent Secretary to this very crucial Home Affairs Ministry of Guyana. The core responsibility of this ministry is national security. It eludes the incumbent this issue could compromise the integrity of its work and trust not only in Guyana but also with other nations of the world. The government continues with its ‘business as usual’ attitude.
Then in May, the tragedy that resulted in the immolation of nineteen (19) teenage girls and a five-year-old boy in an inferno, at Mahdia in Region 8, could have been easily avoided. The incredible carelessness of the government and its troubling lack of appreciation, and respect for minimum safety standards conspired to cause the blaze.
The girls and boy died because the government did not sufficiently care about its own obligation to keep those young innocent lives safe. They were locked in a cage-like dormitory with no security personnel on the premises- an unbelievable lapse, on the part of the government.
Although previous official reports, including one from UNICEF, on the hazards presented by existing conditions were delivered to the government, it sat on its hands and did nothing to improve safety standards at that school.
Worse, weeks after that tragic incident, and in spite of lofty promises about investigations and leaving no stone unturned to get to the bottom of it, President Irfaan Ali, has not appointed a Commission of Inquiry (COI) to find answers and bring possible closure to this tragedy. The PPP/C government is behaving as though the fire never happened.
Guyana must rise! Guyana must rise!
While the nation has been trying to heal from that unnecessary loss of lives, now, in this month of June, we are faced with ‘Dharamlall-gate’. Allegations against the minister of sexual exploitation and abuse of a teenage Indigenous girl. The minister has since been arrested, questioned, and released.
The Indigenous community and, generally, the society are in an uproar and fresh pain. As if the pain of those allegations of vile sexual acts on a teenager was not enough, the President and his government’s belated action on this matter was disgustingly shocking. The president reported to certain sections of the media that that minister requested to proceed on leave. Unacceptable.
The nature of this allegation requires nothing less than the minister being relieved of his duties, with immediate effect, so as not to prejudice, in any way, the inquiry and findings. I also call for the support of the entire Parliament and PPP supporters to make this possible. This is not a political issue, it is not a racial issue, it is a criminal issue!
But the words from the President revealed a woeful lack of leadership and a person who acts as though he is not his own man. It is painfully clear the president is too weak to stand up to this minister and his sycophants. If we cannot have a president who stands up for standards and decency, then we have no president. The government is in chaos. Needless to say, this action by the president is going to hang over the PPP/C for some years to come. But it is a shame that we have come to this. However, it was inevitable. Last year, that very minister made a vulgar statement to a female member of the opposition, in parliament:
‘YOU GOT TO GET A DILDO. THAT IS WHAT YOU NEED’.
Neither President Ali nor any other minister of the PPP/C government, including female ministers, did not sanction, condemn or object to this high level of vulgarity, in the hallow halls of parliament; the place where elected representatives meet and take decisions on the advancement of the nation. They were compliant with his lawless outburst.
Perhaps, the minister felt that the silence of his comrades meant their approval of his unseeming and highly offensive behaviour. But no one should assume that there are no meaningful consequences for his/her actions. In a real sense, allegations against Minister Dharamlall reflect the demonstrated core value of his party: use power and influence not as privileges to serve and uplift society and the people but to dominate and control the weak and vulnerable, who in our society, represent a vast majority.
Marvin’s song started as a party but became something much closer to a prayer. May we, Guyanese, come together and push back against the forces bent on keeping us divided, fearful and underdeveloped. And may the vision of inclusivity, social, economic and political justice encrusted in the national motto,“One People One Nation One Destiny,” prevail.
