If you ask most folks what’s wrong with Guyana – and everyone concedes there’s PLENTY wrong! – they’ll tell you we’re a “divided” nation. Now, while every country has its fissures and schisms, ours cause that dreaded “ethnic voting”, which splits us down the middle whenever we go out to vote; which is every five years or so!! And sometimes it spills out into the streets, where blood can be spilled. Not good at all!
But ethnic voting isn’t just a Guyanese thing; so, right off the block, when we think about ending “our” scourge, we gotta accept that if something’s found in almost every other country, the fault, dear readers, may lie in something other than our Atlantic breeze!! But what’s that “thing”?? We can’t fix the problem if we don’t know what’s causing it, can we?
Now, your Eyewitness isn’t gonna pretend he has a silver bullet – much less where to aim it, if he were to think of one!! But for sure he knows what AIN’T the solution!! And it ain’t the solution to bury our heads in our mud and pretend we don’t have an “ethnic” or “race” problem! Your humble Eyewitness isn’t any kinda “social scientist” or such like (God forbid!!), but he starts with a simple observation. After voting in umpteenth elections, he’s never seen Guyanese going to vote with persons holding guns at their heads!! But lo and behold, after they vote, we invariably find, in EVERY constituency, the breakdown in votes for the PPP and PNC matches the ethnic breakdown in that constituency!!
And – as he’s been saying forever – when it comes to explaining observable facts like the above, his rule of thumb is to follow Arthur Conan Doyle’s dictum: “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” And the “truth” is that most of the people who vote for one or the other of the “big parties” identify with those parties. Not based on what they promise to make – they both promise voters the sun and the moon – with the stars thrown in for good measure!
What it boils down to is folks see one or the other party as identifying with THEM – and our divisions ain’t gonna end until that identification is ended. And that’s our dilemma. This thing called “democracy” needs to have as many people identify with a particular PARTY. Which comes from the word “PART”!! So, until we Guyanese start identifying as ONE, politicians – who want to get their hands on power and money – will keep using all sortsa signals – including ethnicity – to encourage us to place our Xs for them.
The fault, dear reader, lies in us!!
…NDC’s lassitude
Now, whatever divisions we may have at the national level – ethnic or otherwise – at the local level of the “National Democratic Councils” (NDCs), that shouldn’t matter; should it?!! Here, we’ve elected persons who live in our neighbourhoods!! So, we’re talking about taking care of matters that literally hit them where it hurts!! Take the problem we’re all facing here and now: dealing with the floods that are threatening to transform us into a nasty, swampy version of Venice. Aren’t the NDCs responsible for unclogging our drains at critical points, to ensure the water gets into the drainage canals??
Your Eyewitness religiously pays his rates and taxes, and then there are those annual Government subventions – so he knows these NDCs are funded. What in the world are they doing? That aren’t collecting garbage, that’s for sure!! Every year, the private contractor who does that job raises his rates – which is now up to $700/weekly – coming in at a whopping $36,400 annually!!
If the NDCs need money, why don’t they pick up that lucrative business?
…elderly neglect
It’s a tautology to say this country was built by the elderly. We gotta do better by them. Shouldn’t those agencies of Government from which they have to collect pensions etc deliver it to their homes??
Ow, man!!
