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Aug 08, 2018 Letters
The editor,
Everywhere one turns, both at home and abroad, Guyanese are faced with the question of what will our country be like in the next decade?
The searching question must be directed to our political, religious and business and youth leaders, in other words, what will we bequeath to the succeeding generations?
My formative years in primary school, I knew a world consumed with horrors of the so called World War II, 1939-1945; a war which began as no more than a second major European civil strife.
When people like Forbes Burnham and Cheddi Jagan were fledging teenagers, on February 22, 1945, German Americans known as the Bund organised a massive rally in the Madison Square Garden, New York, USA.
This rally was to denounce the American Jews for their alleged hatred of German Nazis and German National Socialism. One of Adolph Hitler’s supporters, Fritz Kuhn telling the crowd of 22,000 that the Jews may not all be Communist but we do know ‘that Jews are the driving force of Communism.’
Of interest Bernard M. Baruch, a Jew, was one of the US President Roosevelts’ Advisors who came in for his share of abuse.
It is amazing how there are always similarities on both sides of the Atlantic and a reminder of what placing individuals and groups into narrow compartments can do. Later, in the 1950s, as a colony we had our own taste of communist influence in the politics in Guyana.
This along with the bombing of Pearl Harbour made this European event into what we now know as World War II. A conflict that took over 60 million lives and destroyed whole communities.
With Truman dropping the atomic bomb on two Japanese cities, seventy-three years ago, this month this brought to an end the fighting and mayhem among civilized leaders and people. The war ended in September 1945 after Japan’s unconditional surrender.
This set the stage for a tragically divided world of what we term Eastern Communism versus western democracy. We still see the scars of this division.
There were meetings with the ‘Big Three’– Stalin (USSR), Churchill (UK) and Roosevelt (USA) and later Stalin with Atlee (UK) and Truman (US). These Meetings were intended to share the spoils of war. It turned out to be a start of an all-consuming ideological war in which we in the smaller countries were literally caught in the middle.
We call it the ‘Cold War.’ As they say when the elephants fight or make love, it is the grass that suffers. We remain the grass but experience should help us to be a resilient evergreen grass.
We were and remain the grass in a world that requires astuteness and commitment by leaders in countries like Guyana or what we are better known as the third world.
Guyana is blessed with God-given resources–agricultural land, gold, diamonds, bauxite, timber marine resources and very kind weather conditions. What more can we ask of the Creator?
Before and after Independence, we faced what some may deem a curse; that of political rivalry and a nonsensical racial situation promoted in the late 1950s.
With oil coming on stream, to add to our blessings, the time has come for all of our leaders, and I repeat all religious, political, business and youth to sit down and agree on a national plan to take us gloriously to the mountain peak.
Let us craft an agreed menu of measures. Tedious as this may be, it is worth the effort.
Whatever political party, whatever religion, whatever business enterprise we are part of, we must know that apart from missteps internally, we are overshadowed by the boogie-man of imperialism and greed lurking behind every door, every international organisation and every conference.
As recent as the 1980s, we recognised that the lack of industrial and technological development had left those of us in the less developed world not only to a state of dependency but poverty inconsistent with our natural resources, vast land mass and less than a million souls.
Daily, I read in some sections of the media criticisms of the Coalition in their dealings with the giants of industry, the banking system and those with advanced scientific and technological competence, oil and gas of course being the most recent.
Even though we have seen improvements in Guyana, the truth is that in an extraordinary period of scientific and technological advance, we in Guyana and elsewhere still face the reality of illiteracy and a lower standard of living.
Of course, we still have a caring concern Government that is far from perfect.
For example, we have just assembled a team to give hampers and to help Venezuelans fleeing from an oil rich country but now facing poverty.
On a recent visit to Boa Vista, I witnessed scores of Venezuelans camping in parks and begging for food and shelter.
I suppose it is good that we can help a neighbour in distress but I can’t help sharing the view that perhaps we should take care of our own kith and kin before worrying about a neighbour; but such thoughts should not be encouraged for the Good Book tells us Love Thy neighbour as Thyself.
This injunction was not to ‘Love thy Neighbour more than Thyself.’
This letter is a plea that we pause a movement so that we can set aside our differences, our prejudices for the common good.
Beyond this, whatever we do, we must not ignore or forget to take account of those ancestors who made by far the greatest sacrifice and suffered humiliation and martyr them to build the Guyana we know today.
Many of us, elders and youngsters are consumed with a vision to transform our Motto of ‘One People, One Nation, One Destiny’, into reality.
Hamilton Green
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