President Irfaan Ali recently told Guyana’s young people: “You are not responsible for the divisions of the past, but you hold a responsibility for the unity of the future.” He urged them not to “inherit former prejudices” and not to allow the past to define the limits of their imagination.
It is an appealing message. No reasonable person wants young Guyanese burdened by the bitterness, mistrust and divisions that have too often shaped our national discourse. Every generation should aspire to leave the country better than it found it.
But there is a question that cannot be ignored.
How can young people move beyond the past when they are constantly confronted by efforts to reinterpret it? How can they build unity when history is increasingly filtered through political lenses that elevate some experiences, minimise others, and present selective narratives as settled truth?
The challenge is not that President Ali wants young people to look forward. The challenge is that no society can build a durable future by obscuring the foundations upon which it stands.
A future built on distorted history is a future built on shifting sand.
Across Guyana today, there is a growing perception that history is being repackaged to serve contemporary political objectives. Certain achievements are celebrated while others disappear from the national conversation. Certain leaders are praised while others are treated as though their contributions never existed. Entire chapters of national development are compressed into simplistic narratives that portray one side as virtuous and the other as blameworthy.
History is rarely that simple.
The story of Guyana cannot be reduced to heroes and villains. It cannot be divided neatly into the innocent and the guilty. It cannot be understood through partisan storytelling that assigns virtue to one group and fault to another.
When political leaders and institutions attempt to shape public memory in this way, they do not strengthen national unity. They weaken it.
Unity requires trust. Trust requires honesty. And honesty requires a willingness to confront the full historical record, not merely the portions that are politically convenient.
Young Guyanese should therefore resist the temptation to become passive recipients of official narratives. They should cultivate curiosity. They should ask difficult questions. They should seek evidence. They should read beyond political speeches and social media posts. They should examine original documents, historical records, academic research and competing viewpoints.
Knowledge is not inherited. It is pursued. The generation now coming of age has access to more information than any generation before it. That access brings responsibility—not to accept any version of history uncritically, whether it comes from government, opposition, civil society, media or academia—but to investigate and think independently.
If young people truly wish to build a country, consistent with the motto “One People One Nation One Destiny,” they must first understand the many Guyanas that existed before them.
They must understand colonialism, labour struggles, constitutional battles, racial tensions, political conflicts, economic hardship and democratic advances. They must understand the sacrifices, successes and failures of citizens from every community and every political persuasion.
The President says young people are not responsible for the divisions of the past. That may be true. But they are responsible for understanding those divisions. Ignorance has never united societies. Knowledge has.
The call to reject prejudice should never become a call to forget history. The call to embrace unity should never be interpreted as an invitation to abandon historical inquiry.
Genuine reconciliation depends on honesty. It requires acknowledging contributions wherever they were made and recognising mistakes wherever they occurred. It requires accepting that no political movement, no government and no generation emerges from history with a perfect record.
The past is not a burden to be discarded. It is a teacher to be consulted. The future belongs to today’s youth. But that future cannot be built on omissions, myths or carefully curated narratives designed to serve contemporary political interests.
Most importantly, it cannot be built on falsehoods.
Build on truth, however uncomfortable, and future generations can walk with confidence and dignity.
Build on revisionism, and some will inevitably be trampled upon while others proceed with the misplaced conviction that they alone occupy the moral high ground, that they alone embody virtue, and that they alone are entitled to write the nation’s story.
That is not unity. It is merely division disguised as progress.
The task before Guyana’s young people is therefore not to forget the past.
It is to study it, question it, understand it and learn from it.
Only then can they build a future worthy of inheriting.
