The imperative of learning from the past escapes a selective group

Our country and many others are plagued by those very vociferous voices that aid and abet wrong-doings and always find justification. For example, the most self-righteous and cantankerous voices talking about racial discrimination, democracy and free and fair elections and the OIL deal in Guyana are the very ones who had nothing to say about the brazen attempt to rig the elections of March 2, 2020, had nothing to say about the history of rigged elections in 1968, 1973, 1978, 1980 and 1985, had nothing but praise for the OIL deal inked by APNU/AFC with EXXON, and had nothing to say when the APNU/AFC government openly discriminated against Amerindians, Indo-Guyanese and PPP supporters between 2015 and 2020.

Quite often, some of those who do not have the moral authority to lecture us try to do exactly that. Every so often, Hamilton Green who has no moral authority to lecture anyone of us, recently lectured us about learning from lessons of the past and avoid the many catastrophes of the past. In itself, there is nothing wrong with his plea. In fact, it is commendable. But often we stand on better ground when we show examples, when we ourselves lead by examples. Guyana has had a horrible history of dictatorship between 1968 and 1992. Guyana has had a history that few dare deny of rigged elections between 1964 and 1992. Every election between those dates, in 1968, 1973, 1978, 1980, 1985, including the bogus referendum, were rigged. Hamilton Green should start there as an example of a leader that has learnt from our past.
Hamilton Green was a senior leader of the PNC in those years, between 1964 and 1992. He was there also when the PNC, in the form of APNU/AFC, tried to rig the March 2, 2020 elections. He did not learn anything about free and fair elections. But now that he has seen the light and is pleading with leaders to learn from the past, maybe, in this new wisdom, he will apologize to the Guyanese people for any role he might have played in those rigged elections. Is he willing to stand up and confess that the PNC was wrong in rigging elections after elections in our country? I fully expect that if Hamilton Green was to respond to this, he will deny there were rigged elections. But hopefully in this new wisdom of his he would not insult our collective intelligence. I, for one, am not holding my breathe because I am certain that Hamilton Green has learnt nothing and will not apologize for those brazen and horrific rigged elections that span three decades.
It is now just past two years since the March 2, 2020 elections. Will persons like Hamilton Green stand up and take a position that the time has come for the PNC leader to accept the results of the March 2020 elections, an election that was scrutinized and observed by credible international bodies? A band of criminals attempted to steal an election in plain sight and elders like Hamilton Green stood by in silence, said not a word. Did he not learn a lesson from our past?
IN the letter columns of newspapers, there is a champion pontificator. In a letter to the newspaper on September 26, he castigated Bharat Jagdeo, Guyana’s Vice President, openly deeming Bharat Jagdeo a tool of EXXON. Bharat Jagdeo is on record, as many of us are, that the 2016 deal was a bad one for Guyana. When this particular pontificator who wrote the letter was with the group that signed the EXXON deal after 2015, he found nothing wrong with the deal. The deal was only wrong after August 2020 when the people of this country royally ditched David Granger and APNU/AFC. All the while, when APNU/AFC was in government, there was nothing wrong with the OIL deal. Granger and Trotman and the whole APNU/AFC cabal had signed an agreement that many who now screamed for renegotiation and a new deal, who want to stop OIL extraction, were silent about. Suddenly, with President Irfaan Ali and Vice President Bharat Jagdeo and the PPP government, what was good before August 2020 is very wrong today. And, according to these persons, the persons to blame for the bad deal are President Irfaan Ali and Vice-President Bharat Jagdeo. It is sheer, unadulterated hypocrisy.
A few weeks ago, a band of charlatans held a conference to highlight the emergence of apartheid in Guyana. This is a country where the vast majority of public servants, the overwhelming majority of the security forces are Afro-Guyanese, where the majority of Permanent Secretaries are Afro-Guyanese, where more than 30% of the Cabinet are Afro-Guyanese, where the PM is an Afro-Guyanese. What kind of apartheid is this? When the APNU/AFC government dismissed thousands of Indo- and Amerindian Guyanese, when ethnic discrimination was taken for granted, these same charlatans did not see ethnic discrimination.
But, by the thousands, Guyanese of all ethnic groups gathered at the stadium to support and celebrate with the Amazon warriors. They gathered at various carnival events to demonstrate ONE GUYANA. For sure leaders like Hamilton Green has not learnt from the past, but Guyanese of all walks of life, all ethnic groups, are putting past polarization behind, working that our future is ONE GUYANA.