Dear Editor,
Sometimes we trivialise or even fail to notice dangerous conditions in our society, here I am referring to an emerging condition where people, in particular young people and those in that vital middle-age category (40 to 65 years), who prefer to stay silent in the face of events and decisions taking place that is affecting them adversely.
Last weekend, and again this weekend, I will meet with a group from the lower East Coast to discuss, among other matters, this strange development of saying and doing nothing about things that are significant to them and their community. Speaking with these persons it is clear that the dark cloud of materialism, like the sword of Damocles, and a condition where corruption at the highest level is not seen as evil, providing you are not caught.
I ask where are our religious institutions, political and social leaders who should be carrying the fight against this evil empire. Guyanese at all levels seem to have short memories of distressing and dangerous conditions. This generation and my generation should take some responsibility for failing to share the experiences of slavery, the post emancipation period, the arrival of immigrants from India, China, and Madeira, and how the Europeans turned our unsuspecting Amerindian brothers into hedge hunters before 1838.
Fast-track to today efforts to deny them their ancestral land, water, and their desire to live in harmony with mother nature. On the coast we see successive administrations ignoring the validity and righteousness of ancestral lands, and the quest for reparation.
Speaking to a group of young people recently, as I noted in an earlier correspondence, they had no idea of what constituted the struggle for Independence in the mist of the cold war, and they had no idea of our key political figures such as Hubert N. Critchlow, Peter D’Aguiar, Dr Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham. In all of this, the fly in the ointment was and continues to be, greed and the machinations of colonialism and imperialism.
The attraction was and continues to be the fertility of our land, and the abundance of other natural resources. The tragedy is that as we fight among ourselves the common enemy, the “boogey-man”, has always and continues to be those from outside with am imperialist and exploitative agenda, today this is the challenge for our pandits, our pastors, our imams, our rastas and even the agnostics and the so-called non-believers. Today we must understand the issues and not be anxious to sell, or worse yet, to give away our patrimony, or massive natural resources, the gift of a good, gracious, and generous God, Guyanese should be getting more of the above.
I said we have short memories and maybe some are afraid to speak up. This week marks another year of the tragic helicopter crash that took the lives of our pilots, not a word for the powers that be, I listened to Voice News on my cell phone which reported a disturbing revelation by a Mr. Su, the tenant of a certain high government official, who claimed he is the middle man to get opportunities from the present regime. We were told that Mr. Su will be sued, the end of yet another “nancy” story.
A census was taken, years have passed and we still await information, information which is the right of every Guyanese to have.
Dear editor, I end with remarks from two great Americans, one the 16th President of the United of America, the other the leader of the civil rights movement. Abraham Lincoln, famous for his role in ending the American civil war, observed; “To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men”, and Martin Luther King Jr, observed; “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
The question is: why in the country, with the fastest growing economy, children are stunted because their parents can ill afford a diet with sufficient protein and fruits. Dear editor, thank God for the independent media, but more of us must speak up to raise the consciousness of our nation.
Yours truly,
Elder Hamilton Green
