Guyana the Beautiful

Over the past decade, the central government has had to take an increasingly larger role in taking the initiative to “clean up” our public spaces. Initially the president would periodically plunge into the fray and exhort members of civil society commandeer members of the armed forces to pull out all the stops to spruce up our capital and other locales across the country. Of recent they have had to literally take over several streets in Georgetown and officially designate their upkeep to be their responsibility. The local government minister – in collaboration with NDCs across the country has sparked a scheme where they pick up derelict vehicles and other all large discarded objects that clutter our parapets to give them a dishevelled look.
Who would deny that the improved surroundings, even in a small way, imparted a spring to our steps and a straightening of our shoulders in the rest of the country. We are all Guyanese and barring some partisan posturings, this was a “Guyanese thing”. The question has to be also posed at the individual level: “Why can’t we keep Guyana beautiful all the time?” It is the conviction of this newspaper that it can be done but it will take a reappraisal of our responsibilities as citizens and more fundamentally, how we view ourselves. Take Georgetown, for instance. It was not always the dump that challenges the Augean Stables it very frankly reverts into after each cleanup. Not too long ago, at the time of our independence it was known as the “Garden City” and was widely admired in the Caribbean as one of the prettier capitals.
We are the same people – well maybe the descendants of some of those people – and if the city and country could have been beautiful then, it certainly can be beautiful now. What has changed is that we are now willing to accept not only mediocrity in those running our city but in them forcing us to live like animals in a sewer and garbage dump. This state of affairs has also spread into the countryside. No idyllic pastoral landscape any longer: garbage by the roadsides and bushes in the clogged drains are now the norm. The rot began during the collapse of the economy during the Burnham dictatorship and gradually, a beaten and broken people perhaps began accepting that they were not deserving of beauty and cleanliness.
As we pointed out, the conditions are reversed temporarily when the central government intervenes. But the responsibility for keeping our surroundings pristine and immaculate is the responsibility of the local and municipal bodies and ultimately, we the people. And we know we can do better. Who has not visited some foreign country and taken inordinate trouble to dump our candy wrappers into garbage cans? Yet upon returning home, throw such garbage onto the streets with impunity? And we rail about how “third world” we are – and blame the government, of course.
What we are proposing, as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of our Independence, in that we as a people must start transforming Guyana at the level we are personally responsible for: our homes and our yards. We can then venture outside of our yards and perchance improve our drains and parapets? The next step is to insist that our local authorities take care of their responsibilities – but not before we take care of ours. We have imbibed an awful, anti-democratic habit that we look to government – at whatever levels – to solve problems that we can handle on our own. Again, this was the consequence of the Burnhamite dispensation that proposed that the state was to be the alpha and omega of Guyanese life.
We have to recover the conviction that all of us are deserving of living in dignity amidst beautiful surroundings. We have to recover the conviction also that we have a large role in achieving such a lifestyle. Why can’t we insist that the best village and best neighbourhood competitions be resuscitated? Let us start at the local level and work upwards. Let us begin to spruce up our once “Oh beautiful Guyana”.