OPINION: A United Guyana can overcome all challenges

Last Updated on Sunday, 24 September 2023, 10:27 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

When Guyana is divided, its ability to defend sacred national sovereignty is seriously diminished.  When the patrimonies lead to non-inclusion (division) then Guyana’s sovereignty is at great risk to subservience at the hands of covetous and mischievous neighbors.

I have always said that deep diligence in working towards genuine national unity must supersede all other priorities.  Guyana succeeds in closing the gap halfway (only halfway) in the jagged racial divide, and this country could stand at the peaks.  It is where Guyana belongs.  Into the combustible mix that is national disunity and national animosity comes Venezuela with its craftiness, its rages, and its testing of Guyana’s resolve.  Today it is about oil blocks; tomorrow, it could be anything that Venezuela manufactures to suit its schemes and visions.

Presently, President Ali is busy shuttling around sounding the alarm.  The Opposition has taken it stand: Venezuelan ambitions must be blunted, and possible Venezuelan aggressions thwarted.  What both the PPP Government and the PNC Opposition are doing in words and postures please the ear, reads well on paper.  For to standup as a country against Venezuela demand the most that can be had and the best that can be had from all Guyanese; it is what only comes from real, deep, authentic national unity.

Now, there is a problem with that score.  The guardians of our sovereignty are mainly one kind of people.  It is one that has attracted many comments-some supportive, some disparaging-about this reality of local life.  But when the swearing about defending sovereignty is finished, the first defenders are the people who do not have the fullest stake, or any to talk about, in this new Guyana.  It is the first fragmented half of the national unity and sovereignty equation.

The second is about those who have commandeered the most plums in the present national season.  They have accumulated much, and control much more, which can become a priority that weighs heavily.  It would be interesting to observe how much they are about national unity in the face of hostile fire, and how real beyond lip service.  I say that opulent accumulations can be a weight because it is difficult to make the sacrifices that are mandatory should the Venezuelans grow reckless, push towards a confrontation.  I face this square on: who and how many in the rich and lavishly prospering crowd of today would be ready to part company with their riches and do their duty should a fight is what Guyana has on its hands?

Those who have a lot are not usually in the forefront battling for the motherland.  Of course, this places the defense of the entire realm in the hands and hearts of those who have been made a mockery of, and smashed underfoot.  It is not an inspiring prospect to contemplate.  Both from the people left to fight foes, and also those who may not be visible or as boisterous as they normally are with things involving patrimony.

I cut to the quick about our reality: those who lead the way in defending the nation’s sovereignty must also be in the thick of sharing in the nation’s prosperity.  In the fullest expression and interpretation of this position, it is more than the actual soldiers.  It is of those from where they come, and of those whom they call their own.  Defending sovereignty demands national unity, which cannot be a tidy convenience that is dug up in times of existential crisis.  National unity is that culture cultivated, that sum of practices prioritized, and that mindset that has evolved to being about what this country needs the most during good times and during times of duress.

Frankly, I am uncertain as to the strength of spirit in those who have been marginalized and demonized now that there is this urgent callup to rally around the flag.  When people are made to feel like outcasts, when they are consigned to the corral of losers, then national unity becomes the toughest of hard sells.  It is looked upon as one being used to overcome gathering storms, and for maintaining the inequitable way things are.  All should want to chip in and give of their all to defend national pride, the national cause.  But when some have been treated like dogs, then it becomes an unappealing job to convince them that they count, and that things will be different once the crisis passes.

I have urged from President to government to make every citizen feel that they have a place at the table.  Not as defined by His Excellency, but what is real, holds up.  The racial cancer has crippled Guyana to a fourth-rate state.  It cannot be solved overnight under the pressure of circumstances.  Those who have given much for centuries before, but are now denigrated, must still find it in themselves to answer the sound of the bugles.  But there will have to be a day of reckoning, and space will have to be made for them at the table to participate in how the patrimony is divided and shared.

To repeat a familiar stand of mine: we can have all the money in the world, and if we don’t have true national unity, then we live with a self-destructive perversity.  To that I now attach this new one: the Venezuelan vision and threat are not diminishing.  And if we are not fully committed to national unity, then we don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell.  Contract insurance, or not.  Think about this fellow Guyanese, and for once let us pause with the reciprocal cursing, and start thinking and planning about how to live in a country of palpable unity.