The Meaning of Independence
Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
May 26, 2004
GUYANESE are celebrating the 38th anniversary of their country's independence today, still in need of "mental emancipation," in the words of Georgetown Mayor Hamilton Green.
The mayor didn't specify what he meant. Then again, he didn't have to. As he implied in an Independence anniversary message, our minds for the most part remain woven in the legacy of "divide and rule," a strategy used by our colonialists to keep our fore parents in subjection when their wont, as a multi-ethnic, multi-religious citizenry, was to work, live and build life and country together.
For decades after "the brutality of slavery and the hardship of indentureship," Guyanese acted as their brother's keeper. It was a parental or adult offence for a child to pass someone without saying "hello" to that person, the use of indecent language was prohibited, and people readily came to the rescue of a neighbour in distress.
Today that Biblical euphemism no longer applies as a general rule. Incidents of abuse, of race hate, of animosity toward political opponents, of open subversion, of disrespect for the police and for the rule of law, abound.
The country's major political forces remain bitterly opposed to each other's style of performance and their followers are either powerless to bring about a rapport, as they have at the grassroots level, or are too fanatically entrenched in bitter rivalry to stop the downward spiral into chaos.
Mayor Green believes the legacy of bitterness and indiscipline is also the reason why Georgetown remains littered with garbage and why unauthorized building works and unsanitary conditions prevail.
Yet, this "downhill" attitude has to give way to a moral awakening and a responsible, productive approach to life if Independence is going to have any significant meaning for Guyana.
The saying that "development is a slow process" need not apply to Guyanese any longer. Many of our country folks have left these shores and excelled in almost every facet of life abroad, and in circumstances that have been harsher.
If our argument is that the reward for hard work pays better dividends abroad than at home, then we need to look at the history of whichever country we're talking about to try to get a sense of what it was like back then before it got to the point where people could now go and "make life."
The answer doubtless would be that the people of yesteryear pioneered what others are now benefiting from with the shedding of blood, sweat and tears.
Guyanese today have to see life in Guyana as a challenge to meet and to overcome.
As we celebrate today, we should pay less attention to fireworks and merrymaking and more to the meaning of the founding of Guyana from British Guiana as it was a second before May 26, 1966, and the values it holds dear.
Visitors emphasise that Guyana is a beautiful country. We ourselves reiterate this fact when we travel overseas.
We need, then, to work hard, and together, at reaping the rewards of the beauty - natural wealth - with which our country is so endowed and no longer stubbornly see subversion, race hate and non-cooperation as the way forward.
That, for us, must be the meaning of Guyana's Independence.