We Cannot Give up before we Start

We Cannot Give up before we Start
guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com

by Malaika Scott Posted August 25th. 2001

"In the midst of national crisis, Guyanese have made some gain. The most dramatic achievement has been the consolidation of racial unity. Africans and Indians are standing side by side in a way that has not been true since 1953. Indeed, we now have a degree of racial unity greater than at any previous time in our history. The WPA has consistently argued that political unity across racial lines was most desirable and possible. The truth of that position is now obvious."

"People's Power, No Dictator"
Walter Rodney, October 1979

Would that I were able to stand before you and truthfully make that declaration about our people today. Would that I could say that we have gained ten-fold on the gains we gained more than 20 years ago. Why should I have to stand before you, and from the dismal landscape that is ours today, look back and wish for those days? Before you say, she doesn't know what she's talking about - wish for those days? Does she know what we lived through? - hear me out. I don't wish for the bread, cheese and gas lines. I don't wish for the stark terrorism with which most people lived. I don't wish for the despotism, I don't wish for the war. What I wish for is the fighting spirit. I wish for the commitment to the struggle. I wish for the will to get up, even as forces continually beat you down. I wish for the love. Above all I wish for the solidarity.

I thought it would be too easy to stand before you today and recite the oft-repeated depressing litany of hopelessness, despair, frustration, anger, helplessness. But I neither need to, nor want to, because we have been so inundated with that litany that we have become numb, desensitised - the only way we know how to live and deal with the horrible, horrible reality that we are a nation broken. Broken of spirit, broken of hope, broken of resources, broken of infrastructure, broken of pride, even broken of treasury.

But were I to recite this litany to you, I would be adding to that depressing conversation. I would be choosing to be the victim, I would be choosing to stop fighting. Personally, I think enough is enough. Why must I stand before the same dwindling group of people whom I stood before last year and tell them what they already know?

That dwindling group has fought the fight and I respect you for your courage and your commitment. But I don't want - and I daresay my peers don't either - to fight the same fight you fought. Why? Why is it that 25-30 years after, I'm fighting for the things you fought for? Why must I now even, fight for the same gains that you fought and shed blood for? Does that make sense to any right thinking person?

Some weeks ago, I went to listen to Makonnen Blake-Hannah, the 16 year old Jamaican who has helped revolutionise the face of Caribbean information technology. Makonnen grew from sitting on his mother's lap as she worked on her word processor into someone who has become a symbol, not only in his native Jamaica but throughout the wider Caribbean, of what youth can achieve if given the chance. I must admit, the reading on the hope scale wasn't at its highest at that point. But as I sat there and listened to him, beside the fact that I thought if I were 10 years younger I could probably check this guy out, I felt the stirring of an emotion of such pitch that it gave me goose pimples. I felt empowered. I felt positive. I felt like I had just roused from a deep, dark slumber and was shaking off the cobwebs - no the shackles - of despair and helplessness. I felt like yeah! I want to go out there and do what has to be done, I want to go out and fight the fight and I want my people to feel this way too. This high lasted for all of the 15 minutes it took me to get home to blackout!

But the feeling remains with me because despite all that has happened since then to push it down, it keeps bouncing up like an irrepressible child and I want to believe that I'm not the only one who feels this way. I cannot be. I must not be. A few days ago, a wise elder and myself - though I'm not sure how Andaiye would respond to being called an elder - were speaking about things as they are and she said she wants to believe that there must be "pockets of positivity" in the country, because everyone throughout an entire country cannot be feeling the same overwhelming, down pressing despair. She surmised that it must be because she was exposed mainly to middle-class Georgetown, but what of the rest of the country? She suggested doing an investigation and I said yes, why not. Seriously. But I feel that I must hold on to my precious thread of hope or else I will surely go mad.

I would like to say to the members of that dwindling group - and you know who you are - that I think your message was lost in the melee of "is my time now". I'd like to say to the members of the equally dwindling group against which battle was fought more than 20 years ago - give it up. Go home - aren't you tired? I would like to say to the members of my group - like the youth I see represented here today - that we cannot give up before we've even started. And I'd also like to say to them- do not be taken in by the ways of insularity. Do not fall victim to hate. Do not be swayed by greed or power. Do not be consumed by despair. Do stand strong. Do hold your head high. Do commit to putting your shoulder to the wheel and do want, not to run away (I admit that's easier said than done) but to stay and lift our country up again. I can promise that I will try - can you?