Re-engage the past to avoid repeating mistakes

Apr 05, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
After reading Asquith Rose’s letter in the Kaieteur News of April 4, 2011, captioned, “Those who speak from both sides of their mouth should not be trusted”, I must say that I am very much uninterested, considering the fact that this fellow seems to be writing, essentially, about the same things in all his letters.
Asquith Rose is starry-eyed, completely unrealistic in thinking that his take on President Jagdeo is gospel and that all of Guyana should buy and sell wholesale, everything that he says in his letters.
President Jagdeo’s address at Buxton was fitting. We should not indulge in every aspect of the past. As a people, it is imperative that we wipe the slate clean and start afresh.
Nevertheless, the aspects of that past that resurface and remind us of that tragic past must be re-engaged and dealt with so that we can overcome it and not make the mistake of being once again dragged into that past by shadows of that past. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, the solemn words of George Santayana.
It is fitting that so many refer to the months leading up to the election as the ‘silly season’. It really is silly that just about anything and everything is picked up and ran with.
The fact of the matter is that Guyana is a democracy, where the people elect their president through free and fair elections.
The people of Guyana have spoken and they chose the person by whom they will be represented. Bharrat Jagdeo is the President that the people chose to govern the affairs of this country and whether Asquith Rose likes it or not, the day to day running of Guyana is the President’s responsibility.
If this fellow has difficulty accepting this, I will urge him to exercise his democratic right on Election Day, which is a mere couple months away and vote for the president of his choosing.
Nigel Green