Guyanese like everything American…good, bad, or indifferent, if it’s American…just gimme. KFC, NIKE…just gimme. Our kids import many negative aspects of American culture including the Prison Bitch Syndrome, where male homosexual prisoners in America drop their pants below their hips, displaying their ass-ets in order to show the studs that their ‘back door’ is available. Guyanese males are dropping their pants all over the place like li’l Wayne…just gimme.
America and the rest of the world are in the throes of an expensive dilemma as a consequence of brinksmanship gone awry, and the tea party tail wagging its Republican dog…poor Boehner. Unfortunately, Guyanese politicians appear hell-bent on replicating the behavior of the donkeys and the elephants toward gridlock with no endgame in sight. In Guyana’s Parliament, when the minority Government attempts to debate the majority Opposition, their engagement becomes more characteristic of bully-ism than politics. The behavior on both sides of Guyana’s Parliamentary aisle appears eerily similar to the contribution of the American Tea Party’s role in the shutdown of the American Government. For example in Guyana, the Opposition refuses to review any parliamentary submission by the Minister of Home Affairs, so, the President refuses to review any parliamentary submission by the Opposition. Lose/lose, zero-sum politics of confrontation and winner-take-all attitudes of our politicians, continue to imperil our society, and, unless checked in very short shrift, may accelerate our descent into gridlock in the Parliament and barbarism in the streets. Of major concern is whether this constant confrontation is a result of our ‘leaders’ apparent inability to negotiate. This inability to negotiate may have manifested itself in the fire sale concessions granted to some multinational corporations on the backs of Guyanese taxpayers.
Is it possible that our leaders’ inability to negotiate with the shrewd, skilled, highly experienced, well-educated, international, savvy executives could have resulted in their being railroaded into acquiescing to foreign concerns with fists full of dollars? Do our ‘leaders’ use the guise of promoting a favorable investment climate in order to disguise the fattening of certain coffers? Would the acquisition of proficiency in the fine art of negotiation elevate the level of political interaction in Parliament? Would the practice of negotiation throughout the hallowed halls of Parliament trickle down to the populace and dissolve the national psychosis of bully-ism?
A clear nexus may be drawn between the conduct of our politicians and the behavior of the populace. A case in point is provided by most minibus and taxi drivers who appear to have become so convinced that a louder horn or bigger vehicle bestows the right-of-way on its possessor, that failure to submit to their bullying frequently results in verbal or physical abuse. Anecdotal evidence suggests that deliberate contact may have been employed, as the bigger bully used their vehicle as a weapon. America has instituted penalties for aggressive driving in order to forestall an epidemic of bully-ism and associated violence on its roadways. Guyana’s failure, thus far, to implement a remedy for the bully-ism on our roadways serves only to embolden the bullies and compel the submission of law-abiding, civic-minded citizens to their will.
Since Guyanese like everything American, let’s like, adapt and implement some positives from America like defensive driving and penalties for aggressive driving. Our culture of bully-ism, bolstered by poor negotiating skills by licensed drivers, politicians and the citizenry at large, has resulted in an unacceptably high level of casualties on our roads, hostility among the politicians in and out of Parliament and uncivil behavior toward each other. There are no more excuses…the time is now. We urge our ‘leaders’ to forswear bully-ism and rapidly resolve their current parliamentary impasse and future challenges through negotiation, thereby forestalling our rapid descent down that slippery slope toward anarchy and barbarism.
