Titanic or Cinderella, which will Guyana be?

Nov 28, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

On the current state of management of the oil and resources sectors in Guyana, particularly the oil, there seem to be two stories being played out, one factual and one fiction both being relative to Guyana’s situation.

Looking first at the factual story, a few hours before the Titanic hit the iceberg, a ship called the California radioed the Titanic warning them of icebergs in the route Titanic was about to sail through as the California had just sailed through there, the radio operator of Titanic who believed the slogan, the Titanic was unsinkable flagged the message as non-urgent and filed the message with the non-urgent messages, he also scolded the radio operator of the California for sending unimportant messages through his line.  The California because of the bad attitude shown went into radio silence with the Titanic, which subsequently hit the iceberg.  Because of the radio silence of the California, they did not hear the call for help despite being the closest ship to the Titanic as it was sinking after hitting the iceberg.  In this story, the parliamentarians with the oil companies are like the iceberg, those fighting to save Guyana are like the ship California and Guyana is the Titanic.

In the other story, the fiction one, a poor servant girl called Cinderella was transformed into a beautiful princess by her protector and fairy godmother, married the prince and lived happily ever after, despite the efforts of her evil stepsisters who tried to destroy her. In this story, the fairy godmother represents those who are fighting and trying to protect Guyana, the evil stepsisters are the parliamentarians with the oil companies and Guyana is Cinderella.

Yet the spokespeople of the oil companies and government continue their propaganda of how they will be the fairy godmother and transform Guyana into Dubai, yet they would never answer any of the questions asked by independent media, would never provide data like the poverty index value of Guyana, or the disposable income level of low paid workers who are even lucky to find employment.

So, Guyanese with all said, which story you want to be part of, the Titanic or Cinderella?

Yours faithfully,

1. David