Dear Editor,
The letter by Vic Lobert captioned "The culture of lawlessness is many pronged" [ please note: link provided by LOSP web site ] (3l.l.2002) is in many sad ways one unfortunate statement of fact, which I have observed since coming to Guyana with high hopes five years ago.
Vic Lobert suggests: "The government will have to seriously attack that tree, the culture of lawlessness." Like Vic Lobert, I believe that "a culture" is developing. However he should not look to "the Government" for improvement.
A country only gets a government it deserves. The people choose it. It is the small population which is left, that should feel the pride of being Guyanese, and they should put their shoulder to the wheel to make something of this very underdeveloped developing country.
The ones that are here should forget about those so-called overseas patriots, who claim to "love Guyana" from abroad. They are only stifling any development planned here.
It is my observation that the "Ex" Guyanese are creating a "left over" culture of Guyanese with the only ambition of trying to join their "We love Guyana" patriots for so called "greener pastures".
The left overs feel as if they have been "left out" and most of them are dreaming of joining their overseas friends or relatives one day and have become indifferent about the standards and conditions here. I believe all the sad points Vic Lobert raised in his letter are true in the "Left over culture" That is Guyana today.
I come from perhaps one of the most developed countries. We ask ourselves: "Why are there so many "third world countries?" I believe the answer lies in education. Developed countries are developed through raising the standard of education. Take ignorance away and replace it with knowledge. Knowledge makes people ambitious - to better their own lives and the country in which they live.
Guyanese should lodge their protest against these American recruiters of our teachers with the United Nations. What a ludicrous situation - the lack of education keeps this country from developing and yet the US and UK lure the few teachers Guyana so badly needs away! And this is how the culture of left overs is reaching - the teachers say they want a chance to earn enough to have a house, to afford a car and so on.
How smart are these teachers of ours? Don't they realise that collectively they are the ones that can ultimately determine the development of their own country, improve their own conditions? A Mr. John Singh (31/1/02) wrote about his sister, a teacher of more than 22 years, not earning enough to fund her home and perhaps buy a Prado because "each human is entitled to a good life under God" (?) Sorry Mr Singh, your sister together with many of her colleagues together with you have missed the boat.
22 years ago, your sister and others had a whole new generation of young Guyanese in front of them. Instead of teaching that generation for the good of the country, she created a hole for herself and many holes of illiterate, unemployable youth, for with this culture of complaining, planning their "Back track" move instead of sitting in a government of competent representatives of the people making this country great.
Believe me, Mr Singh, money doesn't make a decent life, even if you think that quotes from the Bible should be interpreted as such. Decent people, living in a "learned" society make a decent life for each other. I would feel a twinge of despair, call it misplaced sympathy, if protests by the people have to be led by a washed out television owner in a wheel chair, with any old sock wrapped around his head, or previously an attorney-at-law, also in a wheel chair with his leg in plaster. Guyanese must protest against "the culture of indecency" as Vic Lobert suggests, and teachers are the only ones that can help. Instead of seeking a "decent life", which Mr Singh so badly wants for his sister, living somewhere in a New York slum, his sister should protest on behalf of the whole of Guyana at the United Nations against teacher recruiters coming here to steal those people this country so badly needs for its own development and for a decent life!
A culture of "walking wounded" all in search of a decent life. John F. Kennedy once said, - and this should be adopted by those, Guyanese not in wheelchairs yet: "Ask not what my country can do for you, but what you can do for your country!"
Yours faithfully,
Hans T. Machielse