Anywhere in the world $100 million dollars is a big deal. Anywhere on this planet Earth one hundred million US is a big, beautiful development. Anywhere in Guyana, US$100 million is so big it makes Guyanese men burst out of their shirts, and Guyanese women expand their skirts. For what is US$100 million in Guyana where the rate is US$1:GY$200. For the forex purists and nitpickers, keep the change when GY$220 or GY$240 is collected. Twist it or turn it, US$100 million for Guyana is GY$20 billion (plus some stray coins). What staggers is that it’s Exxon giving the US$100 million for Guyanese youngsters to advance themselves in Science, Technology, and Mathematics (STEM). I see, I hear, I discern 100 million flashes of celestial brightness, and even more Exxon executive swiftness. Therefore, the next Guyanese who says Exxon is callous, soulless, and depravedly heinous, had better be prepared to receive a few strong words from me. Unlike the productions rushing out of Office of the President and the Office of the PM’s Live in Guyana, I commit to the whole truth, with strenuous obedience to that Mosaic commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness. What say thee Mac and Cde Molotov?
I already hear a bunch of Guyanese in Freedom House, and other PPP Govt dens of iniquity jumping up and down in delirious celebration. Not so fast, good friends. Hold those horses. Try these sobering, wakeup, considerations. First, Exxon’s US$100 million gift to the STEM children is over a 10-year period. Second, that means the US$100 million, or GY$20 billion distils to GY$2 billion annually. People can say what the hell they want, but GY$2 billion is still GY$2 billion, after inflation is factored in, netted out. Praise and thanks to Messrs. Woods and Routledge for coming up with such tender, loving care for Guyana’s youth, the wave of this country’s future. My hope is that that wave doesn’t wash up on the shores of Scarborough, Toronto or Queens Village, New York. Now for the heavy stuff, with the going tougher from here.
Third, a question for my fellow Guyanese: who does that US$100 million belong to, from where originated? Time for licks, sticks, and bricks. I must admit that these sharpies in the upper elevations of Exxon are thinkers, planners, clinical human calculators. For what is Exxon doing to Guyana and Guyanese children with its well-ribboned, sweetly packaged, US$100 million STEM gift? From the mountaintop, here it comes in an avalanche of boulders and thunders. EXXON IS TAKING A MINOR FRACTION OF THE MONEY THAT IT SEIZED FROM GUYANA AND GIVING IT BACK TO THE STEM CHILDREN AS A PERFECTLY STREAMLINED, WELL-PUBLICIZED GIFT?
For those who have heard of Rhodes Scholarships and Rhodes scholars, there’s the precedent. Cecil Rhodes worked the Black Rhodesians to death, then was kindness itself to create a fund for students who excelled to study some more. It’s the same slick setup, but on a grander, more propagandized, scale, when a big motion picture is made out of how much aid is given to Africa, Guyana, and the Caribbean Basin. The billions grabbed from the colored people mines, their forests, their seas, and their fields (oil and gold, diamond and platinum [and their cheap labor]) are carted away and rapturously received in Annual Reports, and hailed in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Bloomberg. Afterwards, there are those trickles of millions to the host nations that had their gems and guts clawed out. Exhibit One for Guyana: US$100 million for budding STEM superstars. Billions taken out; millions given back. It’s a nice racket, isn’t it? Check the odds: 1000 to 1. What adds a touch of genuine class to all this giving is that the Exxon(s) of the world make sure that they slap a picture of Jesus Christ on the cash cargo so that there is that blessing on it, and halo to match. Reparations anyone, for slave labor? Gentlemen of the manor (a synonym for plantation), like Woods and Routledge know how to make people like me laff and weep simultaneously. But not for the reasons that they think.
If I like the American free enterprise system, I have to like Exxon. Be assured that I do. What I don’t like, is anathema to me, is how these companies come with their baubles and trinkets, and get the natives to dance a jig. It’s partnering, stupid.
