Guyana in 2020: The truly sordid side of humans
Kaieteur News – My mind involves academic and social activist – 2020 was one of the most depressing, scary, pessimistic, dangerous and socially destructive years in the pre-colonial and post-colonial period in Guyana.
One of my expectations was that when we had our first COVID-19 death and that it was a foregone conclusion that the country would follow the rest of the world in implementing restrictions, the APNU + AFC and their deputies would have concluded that the attempt at rigging would have failed and now it was time to put Guyana first because we are facing a pandemic and people will die if the unwanted competition continues in those circumstances.
This was not to be. In 2020, this country was literally on the precipice facing unimaginable election violence and pandemic hunting tentacles. But some politicians and tribal-inspired people didn’t care whether Guyana would go down.
I heard and read about people saying that Pompeo had a motive in the play of the election. Look at those people who echoed that point of view. Their position in the classroom is not even the most remote of similarities to the young financier with three children who looked at me with blank eyes during the election rigging and said, “Mr. Kissoon, I live in Good Hope, and I have to come to town to work, I’m afraid. “
Read the newspapers and find out which countries the Pompeo critics live in. No, not Guatemala. No not Sudan. No not Haiti. But in the US and Canada. If Pompeo had not stepped in, then our institutions would have collapsed. Ten years from now, when you run into these Canadian Guyanese and American Guyanese, and you say: “Oh how are the kids?” Then you hear what job is have them on Wall Street or in the airline industry and what year did they graduate from Harvard and Yale.
Talk to these people. I’m sure you have at some point in your life. They never fail to tell you what they accomplished after they left Guyana. They never fail to mention the wonderful jobs they and their spouses got. They never fail to star you with the first-class education their children received.
While in Guyana, unelected governors would not have been able to find money to fund our secondary schools much like our only national university. Guyana 2020 survived because people like Pompeo saved this land from the return of Burnhamite dictatorship. Let me say with a pellucid glow, I don’t give a damn what you think Pompeo’s motive was. I don’t want to know what his motive was. I am interested in his direct intervention in saving my country. I live here. This is my only country. It’s not my adopted homeland.
I make no apologies and I will never apologize in the future for the role that Pompeo, American, Canadian, EU, British, and CARICOM diplomats played in helping Guyana through one of its most dangerous crises in colonial and post-colonial times. colonial. Those who criticize Pompeo should show some moral obligation and return to their birthplace and help shape a future for this young nation.
I remember a Guyanese-Canadian professor in Toronto writing a letter in the newspaper about how she has tenure at her university. That means she has a permanent contract. She doesn’t come back to live and work here. She doesn’t leave the big bucks, which she earns at her university to work at AS. What does she know about Guyana and how do we feel about the strategic assistance that Pompeo gave to this country when she really needed a helping hand?
The year 2020 has become history. Guyana survives. We read about how many world-class hotel franchises come to set up shop. We read about huge foreign investments. We read about planned free AS education. We read about a vast economy based on oil revenues. Ask yourself if that would have been possible in January 2021 if we had unchangeable leaders. When leaders cannot be removed, the pathetic and pathological decline of power is logical. It happened throughout history. It occurred in this land between 1968 and 1992.
If you look back at 2020, you will see the inherent expense of the human mind. People put ethnicity and power before their country. In 2020, Guyana was scrambling from a double whammy – election rigging and COVID-19. We must not forget and forgive those who sided with wickedness. They do not deserve to be part of any future narrative about a united Guyana. I close with an assertion – Pompeo saved Guyana. I make no apologies for that statement. Not now. Not ever.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper.)