Straight-thinking citizens, professionals being marginalised

Dear Editor,
There is a story that is told about Bob Marley. Bob Marley was shot while at his home (Jamaica) in December 1976, two days before he was due to perform at a concert. The story goes that when he showed up to perform at the concert and was asked how he found the strength and courage to show up, he answered, “The people who are trying to make this world worse…they are not taking a day off. How can I? Light up the darkness.”
I am reminded of a group of people in Georgetown, Guyana who lit up the darkness in a way that Guyanese have seldom seen. They are the civil society group the Movement Against Parking Meters (MAPM). The entire country watched in awe as this group went up against City Hall and exposed its corrupt negotiations, stopping them in their tracks.
The sheer awesomeness of the strength and power of a spontaneous movement of Guyanese united against injustice was a small signal of the potential of a United Guyana. A secondary but no less important observation is that the organisers who were a part of MAPM had more knowledge, principle, and a greater sense of justice than those corrupt officials in City Hall. What if these roles can be reversed? Dare we dream of a day when principled, decent, law-abiding Guyanese are the administrators of the city? What would Georgetown be like if the best of us, instead of the worst of us, were its administrators?
At a national level, politics is dominated by opportunism. There is no space within the major political parties for development-focused individuals. They are pushed to the side while the biggest opportunists take centre-stage. The moral corruption has now been completely extended into the public sector, where the ruling party decides who is hired and who is fired. When the Guyanese politicians invite qualified, competent, overseas-based Guyanese professionals to return to Guyana, they need to add the fine print ‘to be our stooge or to do our bidding.’
The political culture of Guyana is now so corrupt that the worst of us are elevated into positions of power at both National Elections and at Local Government Elections, creating a huge human resource crisis and condemning us to permanent Third World status. Decent, law-abiding, straight-thinking citizens and professionals are marginalised, pushed out and excluded from the decision-making processes of nation building, and replaced by weak-minded individuals.
Guyana is a Third World country, and will remain a Third World country because the best and most qualified of us are deliberately excluded from being involved in decision-making and administration. This is a direct consequence of an opportunistic political culture. The human resource crisis that is facing the nation and stifling our development is a created crisis that can be reversed, but only if there is a radical change in the political culture. The impetus for change has to come from the people of Guyana. If we fail to take our responsibilities to our nation seriously, especially with the threat by the military-industrial complex on the horizon, we can be assured that we are the only ones taking the day off.

Sincerely,
Sandra Khan