Dear Editor,
The price of oil has scaled the heavens, gold gleams at heights unseen, and the world speaks Guyana’s name with fascination and envy. Yet within the borders of this small and mighty land, the air is heavy with unease. Citizens walk past cranes and condos, but cannot afford basic rent . They watch their rivers shimmer with wealth, yet their tables hunger for fairness.
The contradiction is bitter: the age of plenty has come without the feeling of prosperity.
And this, perhaps, is what wounds the national spirit most—that all this triumph should taste so hollow.
In these times of unequal fortune, it is impossible to look at the pillars of Freedom House without hearing the footsteps of the man who gave it meaning. Dr. Cheddi Jagan built that house not for comfort but for conviction. In his writings, he warned against “any system that places power in the hands of a greedy few while the many toil for crumbs.” His West on Trial was not merely a book—it was a covenant with the working class, a declaration that progress must walk hand-in-hand with justice.
He reminded us that true development “could never be measured by statistics alone but by the quality of life of the humblest citizen.” What would he say, then, if he stood today before the high gates of oil-fueled prosperity? If he saw that the land he once called the people’s hope had become the playground of profiteers—both foreign and local?
It is not the market that has failed us; it is morality.
We see once again the slow creep of what Jagan warned of decades ago—state capture by economic power, the quiet corrosion of independence from within. The new governors of wealth have learned to master rhetoric as art, even as they forget its meaning. They speak of “transformational projects,” yet the transformation bypasses the common man. They claim “national upliftment,” yet the same masses who raised them to office are still denied the simple dignity of secure livelihood.
And all this unfolds under the roof of Freedom House—the same house that echoed once with the ideals of socialism, public service, and the sacred duty to place the poor at the center of national life. Dr. Jagan often wrote that “a ruling elite divorced from the people will always lose its moral right to lead.” His words, though half a century old, now ring with eerie precision. The promise of national liberation mutates into another form of domination—one wrapped not in flags of empire but in contracts and currency.
But history has a habit of calling witnesses. The conscience of the people is stirring again. From the fishermen of Rosignol to the cane cutters of Albion, from the clerks of Georgetown to the diaspora watching anxiously abroad, voices rise—not in despair but in demand. A people are remembering who they are.
And that remembrance is revolutionary in its own right.
Let this message be heard clearly at Freedom House:
The wealth of this nation belongs to no dynasty of politicians, no circle of corporate friends. It belongs to the Guyanese people—all of them, from the Essequibo to the Corentyne, from the coastland to the hinterlands. The downtrodden whom Cheddi championed still breathe, still hope, still demand their place in the promise.
He wrote once that “a nation grows great when it uses its wealth to uplift the lives of its citizens, not to glorify its rulers.”
If those who now sit in power have forgotten that, history will remind them with the force of a people awakened.
So let the gates of this new prosperity be opened—not as favor but as right.
Let oil not divide but unify. Let gold not glitter for the few but gleam for the many. Let the creed of Freedom House once again mean what its walls were built to represent: liberty, equity, and the moral duty to serve the least among us.
Cheddi’s dream was not of gold or oil—it was of justice. To honor his struggle is not to quote his name, but to live his purpose. And the time to live that purpose again… is now.
Sincerely
Hemdutt Kumar
