Adayofnationalhonour

Throughout their existence, Guyanese have been brutalized and victimized by tough guys and hardcases that they allow to walk all over them. For the most part, local political scoundrels, who operate under the fancy flag of leaders and ministers, have reeled in, chewed up, and spat out citizens like yesterday’s garbage, like some soiled relationship bettersevered. Thatis,until there is the next need to use them, by wrapping them around the thumb, and then getting them to bow to the low and high cons that pass forgovernanceandprinciple from principals in this country

Guyanese: today is the dayoftest,thefirststrainsof what the peoples of this nationstandfor Resilienceis called for; there will be resistancelater Whoknows, therecouldsooncometothat time and opportunity that rejectioniswhatfollowsnext Guyanese honor themselves withararedisplayofstanding forwhatisduetothem

Or they give others permission to look upon them as people most dishonorable, where their patrimony is concerned They must fight for what is theirown;wemust. Imust. From my perspective, there are simply too many Guyanese sisters and brothers who are grappling with hard times in these the bestoftimes.

Clearly, the situation calls for rousting of self to oust those who will neither listen nor adjust nor treat with the fullness of respect thatisdue. Ispeakoflocals, andIspeakofthealienswho come here and set up an aggressive presence, one dripping of smartly concealed denigrations, palpablediscriminations.

Foreign corporate students of Guyana’s way of life, and its culture of degradationintodocility,now come with their chains and whips, their steel-toed boots and their gleaming Colgate smiles We are for the Guyanese people, they say; we are as one with them, as thebestofpartnersthatcanbe hadanywhereinsunorsnow

We are as one with their leaders, their visions and versions of what is democratic government Buttheonlyonesbenefiting, and incomparably handsomely, are the ones from the outside of Guyana. Guyanese, ask this of self: whoaretheonesannouncing record-shatteringprofits? It is not the Guyanese people, and anyone who says differently is a pathological liar,adeceiverofthelowest, meanestorder

Then, try this one: who are the ones always with a knotintheirstomachs,ahole in their pockets, and a huge, wide gap in their expectations? It is not the growingcontingentoffinely clothed, and richly fed foreign swashbucklers, the privateers that embassies and envoys nod in approval attheircorporatehauls.

ItisGuyanesebythetens of thousands, more accurately by the hundreds of thousands, who don’t have. Forget about profits, all they yearn for are the basicsubstancesthataidina dignified living. This is while all the score sheets, statistical charts, and tables gleamwithtextandnumbers about how each Guyanese with a head that can be counted is so rich, so much theenvyoftheworld.

My concern, my issue, and those are bland, bloodless words that do not begin to give an idea of the grim, dismal existence that dishonors the richest people in the world with the fastest growing economy and, of more recentvintage,peoplenow reclassified into that holy ofholiesrealm,whichisthey are“highincome.”

My problem, my bodily ache, is that there is this reality of Guyanese in oil Guyana. Hungry Guyanese at the bottom, worrying about bills and making the mortgage. Goosestepping Guyanese leaders, marching smartly to the dictates of foreign saboteurs of the nationalpromise.

Kowtowing Guyanese, at the behest of political leaders, slobbering and surrendering to the commands of any foreign Ally,Anthony, orAnne, and their practiced gospels that make sausages of citizens massed at the bottom of this poor country In a recent articleonsexualexploitation in the mining area of Mahdia, the Wall Street Journal still found it appropriate to pin the label of “impoverished” on Guyana. Wearetherichest, but still among the poorest, in this baffling irony of ironies.

Guyanese, where is the spine? What happened to the blood of warriors that flowed to and from the chambersoftheheart? Or,is it, as said, only the sick and the weak were left when the boats finally touched down here? Thisisthetimetotest our honor, to expose how much rage is pent-up within us, and to manifest whether we will be sitters on our haunches for the rest of our lives, or we will rise from squattingonourankles.

The brave have succeeded more often than not,whenfortuneispursued. And there is a tide in the affairs of men that favors when taken at the flood. I think that this is the Guyanesetidethatcouldlift allboats,largeandlow,local and foreign. It all depends on the value that Guyanese placeontheirhonor Itmust not be sullied anymore. It must soar into the faces of exploitersandoppressors.

D i s c l a i m e r : T h e opinions expressed in this column are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or viewsofKaieteurNews.