If the proverbial man from Mars were to visit Guyana what would he find. Well, if he travelled the land or had access to Mr Bobby Fernandes' magnificent photography, the latest example of which is the Shell Book of Guyana, he would see the beautiful mountain savannahs of the north Pakaraimas, the Kaiteur and other falls, some splendid rivers, including the mighty Essequibo, the Rainforest and eventually a thin coastal strip on which a small population lay huddled. Even there, he would find that the main city was still blessed with some beautiful old wooden buildings though there was evidence all around of neglect and decay. Perhaps he would be fortunate to see and read the National Development Strategy and the many ideas and programmes for development it contained. But then, disappointingly, he would notice that the people are preoccupied with petty bickering and that little is being done to take advantage of the many exciting opportunities that exist.

The visiting observer might conclude that Guyanese suffer from a negative mindset, that with the exception of the odd visionary like Peter d'Aguiar they have not even begun to understand and appreciate the country they live in, the possibility of opening it up with roads, the use of the rivers as highways. The leadership on the coast, preoccupied for much of the time since its full emergence in the fifties with foreign ideologies that had little relevance and created indeed the stultifying image that the state would somehow solve our problems rather than individuals with energy and ideas, had not, quite literally, been able to see the forest for the trees. The people meanwhile, he might be told, had languished in mediocrity unable to do anything useful with the independence they gained in l966 and many had left to go to other lands.

The intellectual class, he might conclude, was itself part of the problem. Endlessly engaged in analysis of the social and political situation it did not have the pioneering insights needed to break out of the negative and recurring syndromes of ethnic strife and the resulting apathy and despair.

Guyana, the visitor from Mars might decide, was a social and political tragedy. Large possibilities but very limited achievements. Something fundamental had gone wrong. Yet all was not lost. With a leadership with a vision and big ideas, including perhaps a policy of positive immigration designed to attract people with scarce skills, first and foremost overseas Guyanese, real development could start and much of the alienation and despair that springs from stagnation could be overcome. The negative mindset could be transformed by real, but difficult, achievements. What was needed above all, it might seem to him, was an effort of the imagination, a new way of seeing the country, breaking out of the limitations of the coastland which might in any event in twenty or thirty years face problems from the sea.