Thomas
Jefferson once said “When the people fear the government, there is tyranny”. He couldn’t be more right, and Guyanese, like the many South Americans who were victims of oppressive regimes, are exemplary in standing against exactions committed by the Government.
Under Burnham’s Police State, public demonstrations became the vector through which dissatisfaction of the people was voiced. Masses gathered against their oppressor and were met with open handed violence in the streets. For almost 28 years, the People’s National Congress (PNC) under Burnham and Hotye suppressed democratic and civil rights, controlling right down to who ate what and who had educational privileges. It took the US almost three decades before it shamefully admitted the monstrosity it had engendered when Kennedy opened the door of power to Burnham in 1966.
But Guyanese are people with conviction, and despite the psychological and physical violence perpetrated against people of all ethnic, social and religious backgrounds who dared to oppose Burnham and later Hoyte, in 1992 their resolve transformed into the fall of the PNC. Guyana’s first free and fair election proved Jefferson’s words right. Even today, the PNC cowers in the shadow without of its past failures, without the votes of a coalition.
Now that it finally heads a coalition Government, cutting the grass under Alliance For Change (AFC) leaders who were nothing more than vote catchers, the PNC has an opportunity to make amends for the wrongs committed against the people, such as consecutive rigging of elections and ethnic discrimination.
However, in just one year of government, inexperience of new leaders cobbled with the incompetence of former servants of the Burnhamite era such as Carl Greenidge, has engulfed the population in a morose atmosphere of stagnation. Unfortunately, the first to suffer from the economic decline and harsh social and agricultural policy reforms are the small woman and man. The farmer is no exception and when a farmer suffers, the entire country eventually does.
The Guyanese farmer was perhaps the first to feel the cruelty of the coalition’s backwardness but before long, the harshness of this regime caught up with the working poor. An Amerindian resident of Kuru Kururu spoke out against this social injustice last week, when she pointed out that as a 68-year-old pensioner who cares for a grown disabled son, she can barely survive in the community.
The Arawak woman who spoke on behalf of a congregation living in the community located along the Linden/Soesdyke Highway, vented that her electricity and water subsidies were slashed to zero and that she receives no assistance for her son. She has no other source of income except a meagre pension and in order to make ends meet she was forced to find alternative sources of electricity. She spoke for her 11 grandchildren attending primary school, who no longer benefit from the ,000 school vouchers which were removed by the Granger regime shortly after it grabbed the reins of power. She complained of the deplorable conditions of her environment which encourages banditry, and lashed out against the ethnic and political discrimination against Amerindians allegedly perpetrated by a PNC favoured CDC. She spoke with conviction and resolve – a resolve she would transform into action come 2020.
Inspirational and moving narratives like hers can be easily heard throughout Guyana as I pen this column. But perhaps Amerindians who do not live on the traditional communal lands feel the Government’s prejudicial hand more than the others.
Guyanese people are a people of conviction and resolve, but more importantly, we are endearing and driven by hope. The year 2020 is our new focus and we will again prevail over the tyrants of social injustice.
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