Of the Guyana flag, Guyanese fashion

Note is taken of some objections to the fallen state of the sacred Guyana flag.  A dreadful picture amid a joyful moment of more of Guyana’s patrimony released with the scratch of a pen.  Who has time on such auspicious occasions for the national flag almost trampled underfoot?  It did have a crumpled, forlorn look about it, of which I am sure that there will be little disagreement from any quarter.  It is good that there is agreement on one matter.  Inspiration stirs; hope, too.

Regardless of what I think of flags, of how dearly I hold them, Guyanese in official capacities-all callings-should be more mindful of the sacrosanct nature of such national emblems as anthems, pledges, and flags.  I should be taught by those who are at the higher elevations in this society, not they by me.  There were three Americans in that picture of a flag desecrated, the Guyana flag dropped to a naked, undignified level.  The Guyana flag is not the business of Americans; definitely not their priority.  I may not agree, but there is understanding.  What interests me is how those three fine Americans attached to EMGL, would have reacted if there was an American flag weeping on the floor.  An American flag looking as thought it is some part of a preparation to sweep the floor.  Whatever I think of the Exxon people, there is this one thought that trumps all others: there would never be an American flag collapsed in a heap on the floor.  Men have died, so that other men can live and honor Old Glory.  I point my fellow Guyanese (and Americans) to that immortal and iconic raising of the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima after a ferocious battle in the Pacific theater of World War II.  I can see that flag raising in my mind’s eye.  I can never see, Mr. Alistair Routledge standing tall and proudly holding a token of achievement relative to Guyana’s opulent patrimony, while the Red, White, and Blue has been reduced to carpeting for the floor.  Neither he nor his EMGL colleagues would ever dream of such contempt and disrespect for the American flag.  I quietly submit that there is a standard, and there is a lesson, for all Guyanese.

From now on, Mr. Routledge and I will part company, and it has to do with Exxon, and how Guyanese belittle themselves, surrender their substance, enslave themselves to any yoke, so long as it has a writing, an advertisement, on it.  The yoke takes the form of a shirt, a polo or tee, I think those kinds of menswear are called.  I look and learning comes.  It is not the kind of learning that I seek or I wish; certainly, there is no need.  Plastered across Guyanese chests, encircled around many Guyanese heads, emblazoned on countless Guyanese backs, there is that word, that dogma, that searing, piercing surrender: ExxonMobil.  A contract was once held as the handiwork of the devil himself, a partnership that was once reviled, a confluence of circumstances that energized Guyanese to rip each other’s liver out, but there it was and is.  Guyana’s gaudiest, slickest, trashiest commercial: ExxonMobil.  ExxonMobil on the mind and from the mouth, ExxonMobil in the clothes and deep inside the nose.  It is Guyana’s national fashion statement of fashion statements.  I have heard about the dangers of secondhand smoke, when it is trapped in clothes and closets.  But when Exxon takes up residence in those places, danger disappears and surrender is the order of the day.

I tip my hat to Mr. Alistair Routledge.  Well done, good sir.  Look at those Guyanese eating out of Exxon’s hands.  Look at those Guyanese dressing up their children and great grandmothers in Exxon’s colors.  Look at those Guyanese kneeling before Exxon’s throne.  For Exxon’s and Mr. Routledge’s enlightenment, I reinforce a local truth.  In Guyana, patriotism of the kind that Americans live and die for is an anachronism.  Who cares about a Guyana flag on the floor?  A flag forced to the foul state of sharing space with shoes and socks (that were washed, hopefully).  It was more than a skin-crawling instance of the Guyana flag fallen into the ignominy of an untidy sprawl on the floor.  It is a reflection and confirmation of the bottom-level place that Guyana occupies in Exxon’s orbit.  A dependent nation, a sovereignty, that’s the vassal of an oil company.  When ExxonMobil could be the tattoo that is proudly worn across various parts of the body, then the position of the Guyana flag tells its own story.  It’s in the right place, well-positioned to be used as a cloth to polish the cowboy boots of the men from Texas, and the Manolo Blahnik heels of the Exxon ladies from wherever.