Migrant boat people

Aug 20, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – People are running away from the lands of their birth to get to any place that offers them a chance of living with some dignity. They sacrifice through perilous travels to be able to breathe a bit more freely. We read the horror reports of men, women, children, and even babies, dying at sea as they fall short in their desperate quest to rise above their punishing, dirt poor, circumstances. Some have died in the Mediterranean Sea, others around the coast of Italy, and just recently a half dozen met their end in the English Channel. It is the ultimate cruelty, for so hard was their journey, and so close to their 21^st century promised land, yet so far in their failure to find succor by the fingertips.

Grinding poverty is a driving factor that pushes many poor people to take a risk, brave stormy oceans, and inhuman boat conditions. Their hope is of finding a place in some hospitable country, so that they can begin to stand on their feet financially, and live like human beings should. Another condition is the breakdown of government, and where lawlessness and brutality take hold, frightens citizens in many countries, and forces them to get away from the land of their birth, and from family and friends. A third set of circumstances is fear and alarms generated by authoritarian governments, with power drunk national leaders, which chase citizens to jump their borders by any means possible, and at any cost, in the search for a better, more confidence inducing, life. The people running away from their homelands are primarily from resource rich Africa, dictatorial Latin America, and some other places, like India. At the core, it is of poor lands poorly ruled, or ones rich with natural resources, but impoverished of ethical and transformational governments and leadership.

Hundreds of thousands of Guyanese can relate to migrant boat people, and people travelling in overland caravans. For the last six decades Guyanese have been bailing out of this country by the droves, due to desperate economic circumstances, tyrannical leaders, and governments that shame the name. At one time or another, Guyanese have been terrorized, pauperized, and demonized, which sent them hurrying for any available welcoming harbor. What started 60 years ago has never really ceased, it could be asserted not even so much as significantly slowed down.

On any given day, the American Consulate has a full calendar of locals lining up, waiting, and hoping to get a prized visa to the land of milk and honey. This is despite the decay of American cities, the usual destination of Guyanese migrants, the exploding levels of crime and violence, and the worrying signs of racial inequality and racial hostility. Though lesser than before, there is an active ‘backtrack’ across Guyana’s borders, with adventurous Guyanese bent on taking their chances for a better life anywhere they can find it. In sum, Africa has its migrant boat people, Latin America its caravan people, and Guyana, its migrant plane people.

In the richest country in the world, this is the reality of Guyana. Guyanese have been classified as “high income people have the winning Powerball ticket (oil), but one in two Guyanese cannot fully house and clothe themselves and their families. The reality is that they do not have enough to eat in what is a daily fight for a decent survival. The bills and housing and clothing, and tending to any illnesses, therefore, all become secondary and suffer from a chronic and severe lack of funds. The savage irony is that in the country calculated to have the biggest GDP per capita in the world, there is a mass of Guyanese needing help, and hoping that something will come their way.

Because next to nothing has been coming into their hands from their incredible oil wealth, Guyanese who are trapped on the lower rungs of the nation’s economic stairway have no alternative but to keep going, casting their eyes on any welcoming foreign shore that will receive them. Because politicians in both the government and Opposition partner with foreigners to strip Guyanese of hope, of their chance at riches, they go elsewhere to grasp any prosperity they can get.

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