Christmas, recently and right now
Kaieteur News – Welcome to Christmas 2020. Guyanese didn’t have much of one in 2018, and 2019. May Christmas 2020 compensate for those two that are now lost in distress and bitterness, many of which still exist in parts significant of this society.
In December 2018, and earlier, Guyana’s attention became too focused on who was involved, and when and how much talk of no confidence-building would occur. The focus was on how such a development would shake the balance of power in Guyana, and reshape its politics. As the talk of that heated up and emotions subsided, the Christmas Season suffered two years ago and was eventually as good as gone and dead. From the outset, Christmas 2018 took a different look, and as that fateful day came to a close in the nation’s parliament, the worst instincts of our peoples of conflict were released and effectively suppressed any festive feeling, any seasonal mood.
Last December was no better, and could reasonably be described as even worse, compared to the previous year. All the hassles and delays and calculations from the whole of 2019 had accumulated, and the Christmas texture of 2019 had been destroyed. not with repeats back and forth to the CCJ, the accompanying mainstream media wars, the vicious battlefields of social media, and the tensions at the ground level with the average man and woman in the street. Citizens did not exchange wishes for fairy lights, but for going out of other people’s light. It was the place where aggressive and warlike jobs had landed him in Guyana during the year, against which the season of goodwill faded to grievances and non-grace.
How was this society improving was the concern, when so much intensity of prejudice and unfettered passions were generated, without a quarter? How does December 2020 and the Christmas Season 2020 thrive against the background that is still simmering? How could either have a chance given that, for most of 2020, the wounds remain open and bloody, and raw and look back at our hatred and settled lifestyle?
The answers to those hard, unassuming questions are not easy or easy to find. What we have in place is a precarious and uncertain peace. In some respects, it is armed peace, which is perhaps the most horrific irony, given that it is Christmas in Guyana. Because, as everyone of Guyanese knows, including those of other faiths and demands, this is the most wonderful time of year, when Guyanese pull out all stops, no matter how poor, so little what they have, how limited their prospects are. . For a summary, sometimes for a very long moment, this nation comes to what we would call traditional immobility. That is, except for shopping and sightseeing and celebrating.
While citizens are tackling the fears of the COVID-19 pandemic and individual economic pains, Guyanese are inventive enough to dig deep and find somewhere and somehow a little something to make this December a brighter shade for the family and themselves. As we all know, having lived through some sharp times, it has not been the most wonderful holiday season of the past few years. But this year has already displayed the overwhelming signs that Christmas, a real Guyanese one, is in the air.
The streets are long and slow with crowds of cars and commuters. The stores are dotted with lines before racks and registers singing joyfully alongside Christmas carols that fill the air. There is some skin in the steps of citizens, what we might even dare to take chances and call joy and hope and a smile of good cheer. This is what we know, the way we have a long time ago, and that we are struggling to be today. There is no other way we could be if we were to coexist as people of vitality and promise, as a set of citizens are full of enthusiasm and committed to self-esteem and mutual respect.
This is not just December and during the Christmas Season, but all year and every day. Guyanese: enjoy this Christmas time in 2020.