In this time of liberty are Guyanese free? In this the season of liberty, where is Guyanese unity? A man, a nation, a force stands poised just beyond the boundary to thwart Guyanese prosperity, to take their land and treasure into captivity, and what do citizens of this free Republic thrive on? It is of who is a brother, who stand as one with them, who are against them? This is the best that most of the men and women of this country can unearth from inside of them, and be about; existential threat, or in other circumstances that are nothing less than extraordinary.
Aside from the perils lurking at the edge of the national fence, there is what is closer, developments that are palpable. Money and destiny, the kind that of prosperity that the former makes of the latter. And where are the great majority of Guyanese in this stirring age of liberty? Trapped in the same stagnant swamp. Locked in the same mortal struggles. Whether they live in Richmond Hill, or Blueberry Hill, or any of the other hilltops that relay one message: Guyanese live here. They live their liberty in name only; a forlorn and sorry people.
Speak or write or stand for the type of patriotic principle that glows and the company is thin and lonely. Say and stand for what has some hint of color in it, and there is a crowd drawn, quickly equipped with their arms. Guyanese, to the greatest degree, fight and flourish from an endless civil war fought in their heads. There cannot bring themselves to a condition of spiritual armistice, other than for a poultice here and some cheap buffoonery over there. I ask indulgence, but a dirty word, and a dirtier reality, must be inserted at this point. In one word, it is politics.
The grip of politics is so unrelentingly and remorselessly tight, that not even the patriotic can compete, or endure, against it. A man stands with one hand upraised to strike at the head, one foot to plant on the prostrate chest, and one flag to fly in the face, and almost all Guyanese are comatose, as to their responsibility. The first responsibility is to honesty. Honesty to the Guyanese people. Honesty to what empowers or, at least, facilitates this country to represent itself with some level of dignity.
The two biggest components in the environment of Guyanese, and a whole nation is preoccupied with tearing itself apart. Indeed, not merely preoccupied, but prioritising grievously wounding neighbor and ally. If and when the people of this country cannot speak of the two with honesty and vitality, then of what liberty can they speak?
It would be the decent to say that, perhaps, this country is not deserving of its state. If the will is largely missing (across the board) to rise to maximize what holds the potential for the greatest good, then I submit that when there is the greatest danger, there is no will at all. When these things don’t matter, then of what authenticity is the liberty that is claimed to be? The liberty of willing slavery looms high by any consideration.
Nonwhite men and women delight in recalling and pointing out and emphasizing how the white man was scurrilous and savage, and still is. His steel-tipped boot resting heavily on the nose. But in those times, as in Guyana, when the non-white masters convert their hands into a vise and wrap them around the necks of other nonwhite citizens (in Guyana), and squeezes the spirit out of them, then there is a jarring discovery.
The company is lonely, in that it is solitary. A real condition of liberty? Or that of a different kind of slavery-the worst of them all-that from within the same fraternity? There are few, maybe as many as none, who callout the nonwhite for what points to a creeping catastrophe. History has confirmed and reassured that all the arms that can be summoned often fails when the spirit of the enslaved is uncontrollably aroused.
In this weighing of the quality, integrity, of local liberty, Guyanese find themselves in that ugliest of places: one where the tribal comes before the national. This is what has been cleverly and criminally spawned, then fed, then revitalized, as it suits the demands of the moment. When citizens, one citizen only, is forced to think thrice about speaking frankly in the public arena, then that is a curious kind of freedom.
When an inhabitant of this land must look anxiously over his shoulder at those who have sworn to be his soldier, his commander, on the difficult issues of the day, then that is not liberty. That is a life lived in trepidation, a life that has lost substance, one that has little meaning. Instead of focusing on external threats, there must be concentrating on those inside the bosom. Of all the motions and resolutions that can be thought of, find the time and the space to think of those.
Liberty was given with one instrument in paper form. Liberty has been neutralized by another instrument, also as embossed on paper. They call that sanctity. They tell Guyanese that is liberty. Meanwhile, a neighbor bides his time, plots his strategies, unfolds his nuanced moves.
