Guyanese young people today have access to thousands of scholarships. Many are receiving house lots to build their own homes, and many are establishing businesses as they explore their entrepreneurial instincts. It is a different dispensation because, not so long ago, when they inquired what the Government was doing for young people, former President David Granger told them they should stop asking and go out and sell dog food and plantain chips. In 2020, young people joined other Guyanese to dump David Granger.
Fortunately, young people can look up to role models across Guyana: farmers, hard-working people, doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, sports and entertainment personalities, engineers, accountants, priests and pastors, pandits and imams, business people and people from various walks of life. It is not hard to find these role models; they represent every ethnic group in our country. Among role models are many Afro-Guyanese. For fear of leaving anyone out, I would just acknowledge there are thousands of Afro-Guyanese that are role models for our young people, no matter what ethnicity these young people belong to.
Hon Charles Ramson, Minister of Youth, Culture and Sport, spoke on radio of the growing numbers of persons who are role models for our young people. In particular, he called out leaders of the PNC/APNU/AFC for objecting to three young Afro-Guyanese getting a contract to build a school in Region 10. He wondered why PNC leaders would object to successful young entrepreneurs who happened to be Afro-Guyanese, instead of encouraging more black youth to follow the example of the three young men. At no point did the Minister say Afro-Guyanese youths have no Afro-Guyanese role models; not once did the Minister even remotely make such an absurd claim.
Nevertheless, the Leader of the Opposition joined other colleagues in condemning Minister Ramson. Minister Ramson is capable of calling out Joe Harmon, Amanza Walton-Desir, David Hinds and others for letting down the Guyanese people, particularly persons who have provided steadfast support to the PNC. Afro-Guyanese youths have provided strong support for the PNC throughout its history. They continue to do so today, but the PNC continues to steadfastly disappoint them. When young people look to the leadership of the PNC, they see people who have consistently abandoned and shamed them.
Guyanese, young and old, witnessed first-hand the brazen attempt to rig election results between March 2 and August 2, 2020. While GECOM staff were involved in the rigging efforts, most Guyanese believe that the intellectual authors of the conspiracy to rig the results from Region 4 were leaders of the PNC. The world saw the rigging effort. Past and present Prime Ministers from Caricom witnessed the rigging effort. To this day, Harmon and colleagues brazenly try to sell the narrative that the PPP is a Government installed by Caricom and the ABCE countries. Instead of accepting they failed in Government and the Guyanese people dumped them at the polls, they carry on with the deception, insulting the intelligence of the Guyanese people. The greatest insult is to the intelligence of their own supporters.
Young supporters of the PNC shake their heads, wondering what in the world possessed these big women and men to try selling a story that 33 is not more than 32, when they themselves for decades accepted that 33 is a majority in a Parliament of 65 members. Which young black Guyanese would be proud of leaders who went all the way to the CCJ with the charade that 33 cannot be more than 32? Young Guyanese, no matter what their ethnicity, knew that the PNC leaders themselves knew that the argument of 33 is not more than 32 was simply, a ruse to avoid the elections. How then can PNC leaders expect Guyanese youths, in particular Guyanese black youths who have been loyal to the PNC, to respect them?
When Harmon, in his effort to remain relevant, attacked Charles Ramson for bravely speaking the truth, he conveniently ignored the racist claims made by Amanza Walton-Desir: that Indo-Guyanese supporters of the PPP were “mentally lazy”; by Keith Scott, who served as a Minister in the APNU/AFC Government: that Amerindians are lazy; by David Hinds, who called for Afro-Guyanese to boycott black-pudding vendors from Mon Repos.
Guyanese do remember that, prior to 2015 elections, Harmon and his APNU/AFC colleagues campaigned as the party for young people, and then, after they became the Government, promptly became a Government totally dominated by old people. Guyanese youths in particular have not forgotten that the then APNU/AFC Government shamefully told them to bear their chafe and await their time. The time never came. None of the young Guyanese supporters became a Minister, or had any senior position in Government. There was no place even in Parliament for them.
They forgot the young people in the villages, passing them with their convoys, with bright flashing lights and sirens. The leaders of APNU/AFC found comfort at the Marriot, and forgot that young people in the villages who voted for them in 2015 were still waiting for them to come in 2020. Some of the young people who supported them in 2015, tired of waiting, abandoned them in 2020. Every time now PNC leaders open their mouths, they give their young supporters even more reason to abandon the PNC.
