I have received two emails that are worth discussing because they provide a starting point to demonstrate how quack UG is. The first email has to do with someone who apparently was impressed with my research and hence a prolonged exchange occurred in that regard. I will not release the person’s name due to respect, but let everything else hang out. The person felt comfortable sending me information on an upcoming Diaspora conference at UG. After receiving and assessing the information from this Diaspora conference over four months, I had had it. I told the person in a nice way not to send me that propaganda anymore. The emails have stopped coming to me from that person. Six months have passed and there has not been any exchange between us. I have obviously upset the person. How dare do I cut down the University of Guyana, the person’s alma mater? That was not my intention. Far from it.
The second email has to do with again this Diaspora conference at UG in which one person asked the organisers of the conference in strong terms to have an ethnic balance in the programme, namely to include and encourage more Indians to participate. After reading the email responses from those who are in charge of the conference, I realise how low and one-dimensional these individuals are. Instead of addressing the person’s concern, they rushed into overdrive to defend the conference implying that some were trying to sabotage the conference. I am not shy to declare that these individuals are narrow-minded with a ‘big fish in a small pond’ mentality. These emails, as well as other strands attached to them, coupled with my own experience make me feel confident enough to say without any reservations that this UG institution should be relabelled as the Community College of Guyana. My reasons for this relabelling are that it will reflect the true reality of this institution as a community service-oriented and reduce the insult to the entire concept of university, which essentially means universality of ideas. Does this institution have any inkling of the universality of ideas, apart from the head honchos receiving preposterous salaries, perks and praises? Moreover, look at the people who have served at UG? Do you wonder why some graduates engage in nefarious activities? If Guyana had a functional judicial system, more graduates would have been in prison. After being in existence for over fifty years, not much has come out of this institution to develop Guyana economically, socially or politically. Right now, Guyana badly needs Guyanese in Guyana to help in the area of environmental policy to ensure a firm and fair discussion with multinational corporation Exxon, with regard to oil finds. UG was not even considered in the process. People had to be fetched from the outside. The University does not have a sound environmental policy programme, something I find rather unsettling since Guyana is one of the few countries in the world with large tracts of undisturbed forest land, and yes, oil fields. Right now, if you take a casual walk around Georgetown, or any area in Guyana, you will find so many people with so many social ills that such images would affect even those with the most stoic minds, even those in the tabloids, and even those propagandists-supporters (who believe they are activists) for this brainless regime; a bastion of intolerant policies, growled and greased by old-boy PNC network. There are hundreds of problems, including the recent prison fiasco, that need to be addressed, which in most societies, start with academic institutions, families and communities. This connection is weak in Guyana, exacerbated by the regime’s blot on rural happiness. That is why I propose that UG should be a service-oriented institution rather than a superciliously caged academic house that is largely separated from the community it is supposed to serve. What is the connection between UG and villages from No 52 to 74, other than UG benefiting from the taxpayers of these villages? This is called in the secession world maldistributive justice and the violation of remedial rights. Right now, the focus at UG is on a Diaspora conference to be held at a hotel in Georgetown. I wonder why the conference is not held somewhere else to reveal the true reality of Guyana. Common sense leads me to believe that investment starts with connection to the people, to the local reality, not in posh hotels. The things these presenters will ask are: am I safe, where am I going to stay, above all, and what’s there for me? Then comes the wine and dine. Then they are gone. Look out for these images with the familiar faces on the UG webpage. Looking at the programme, I can only conclude that it looks like the re-colonisation of Guyana, not from the former colonialists, not from the multi-national corporations, not from internal political parties but from Guyana abroaders and the like who have the money, experience and wherewithal to transform Guyana. This is extremely dangerous since these people think they have an entitlement in Guyana, buttered by their connections. Not much will come out of this conference. I will analyse three randomly picked papers, if they are available, to prove my point ([email protected]).
