Christmas is in the air but only because the radio stations are playing the music at this time. In fact, they began playing Christmas music as early as the first week in November. This is supposed to be the season to be jolly. It is supposed to be the time when people spend their last dollar to ensure that the household is a place of merriment. Employers granted bonuses to workers, business places go the extra mile to decorate and to incur the additional expenses that go with the season. They know that they will recover that cost and more. Sadly, this does not seem to be the case this year.
There was a time when the business community boasted that fifty percent of its annual profits came at Christmas time. The businesses imported huge quantity of those things that they knew people would buy. The bonds and wharves were busy. Large volumes of boxes and barrels came into the country, sent by those who reside in the foreign lands to help their relatives and families back in Guyana enjoy the season. They know that there is no Christmas like a Guyanese Christmas. Carts and vans were there at the wharves in large numbers awaiting the call from some individual to transport whatever came into the country. That is not the case this year.
Indeed, barrels and boxes have come but not in the numbers of yesteryear. And there are many reasons. For one, people who worked although they were not entitled to, are not as active today. ICE is busy rounding up people. And the ICE has nothing to do with the wintry weather that is prevailing in North America at this time. President Donald Trump has tackled the illegal migration problem with a vengeance.
Thousands from across South and Central America once flocked to the United States border with Mexico to enter the United States. In a flash, during his second term, Trump had ICE—the Immigration and Customs Enforcement—deal with the illegals inside the country.
The initial roundup was so massive and so telling that the people at the southern border turned around and headed to whence they came. People in the United States were arrested and some sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador. These were supposed to be the worst of the worst. The roundup did not end there. It soon moved from criminals to any illegal.
No illegal was safe. People keeping immigration appointments were arrested, detained and deported.
Markets, work places, and construction sites were raided. Hundreds were detained. It did not escape notice that most of those arrested and detained were Hispanics. They were the people who at one time became the favoured labour in the inner cities. They were the labourers, the contractors, the handymen. They would assemble at a street corner and await anyone who wanted labour. These people have disappeared from the streets.
There were Guyanese who were doing the same thing. Many landed and got hooked up with jobs. In Brooklyn there was a department store named Bobby’s. It employed many Guyanese women. ICE raided Bobby’s and effectively rounded up many Guyanese.
People still talk about the days after those raids. Bobby’s was forced to close for a while because he had no workers. Now he has limited staff simply because it is hard to find anyone who would work for less than the daily minimum wage.
So one can understand the marked drop in boxes and barrels coming into Guyana from the cold North. Indeed, there are those who are using the opportunity to send money to build their homes in Guyana, but that is another story. There was a time when the streets of Guyana would have been full of shoppers buying whatever little they desired. That number has fallen off dramatically. There is no money.
Last year there were the announcements of bonuses for the police and for the soldiers. The public servants also got a proverbial small piece. There was spending money. This year there is none.
With an oil production of 900,000 barrels per day Guyanese should have been laughing. Instead, they are tightening their belts. As was noted last week many have scaled back on the amount of food they could eat.
In living memory there was one Christmas that was almost as bad as this one. The late Desmond Hoyte, angry at the naked rigging at the elections in 1997 had told his supporters that there would be no Christmas that year. The people responded and the businessmen bawled. The drastic slowdown in shopping hurt them to the extend that they complained for months after.
This time there was no call for a boycott. The government simply decided to starve people of money. As everyone is saying, the government is bent on impoverishing the working class. These were the people who were told that they would get a cash grant for Christmas.
There is simply no cash grant. The old age pensioners were told that the extra page at the back of the pension book was a ticket to some money at this time of the year. That ticket is meaningless. Those who spent in advance of the cash grant are now in greater debt.
There is another side to this story. There was a time when the business centres were controlled by Guyanese. The Chinese came with loads of cash and enticed the owners to rent them the business. Now the Chinese have the baubles that make the homes look fancy. Since they have the monopoly, those locals who hold on to their businesses are crying even louder. They simply can’t compete with the Chinese. But even the baubles aren’t selling. At the same time the traditional price rise in the market place is there. The vendors are selling less. The stalls are displaying fewer goods.
Christmas is here but it will be different from those of yesteryear.
