Review of President Irfaan Ali’s first month in office

Dear Editor,

Life is best defined by questions but before I address President Irfaan Ali’s first month in office I would like to go back to a promise he made many times during the election campaign and repeated at his inauguration. He said “I will be a President for all of Guyana.”

This promise was most encouraging and it brings me to the question. What does President Ali mean when he says, “I will be president for all of Guyana”? To me, the answer is obvious, “he will give highest priority to the problem of racial division that has plagued us for decades. But I must be wrong because we are more divided now than during the campaign and five months of waiting for the declaration of our election results.
In Sunday KN Freddie Kissoon’s caption was “I’m telling President Ali, this is what Guyanese want” and he listed necessary bread and butter issues and other things needed to be addressed and/or improved. I don’t want to debate Freddie because that will be very dangerous so instead I will simply say that he overlooked the most important thing which is “the urgent need for racial harmony”.

In fact, I think President Ali should have included a ministry for national unity to deal with and destroy this monster that continues to destroy our nation but this ministry must be staffed with those who genuinely love Guyana and are completely committed to racial unity.

During an interview, President Ali’s mother said that “my son is a good person and will make a good president and as a youth he said that he would be the president of Guyana”. This is a very honourable and ambitious goal which he achieved but here again I have a question. Why does Dr. Ali want to be President of Guyana? I am sure that he must have seen the injustice in our country and wants to be given the opportunity to make a difference. Well, Mr. President you have that opportunity and you have five years to bring racial unity to our country. Once you start immediately with a passion to succeed I am sure that this will be achieved and you would have succeeded where all others have failed and will earn another term as president.

Mr. President after slavery was abolished Indians were brought to Guyana and saw Africans for the first time but could not communicate with them because of a language difference. However, the two races accepted one another and communicated in a heavenly language called “love” but now as educated fools we have chosen to abandon and dismantle love and replace it with sowing and fertilizing seeds of division and are now reaping the fruits of great regrets.

I continue to follow the news daily searching for messages of healing to our wounded nation but our news media is saturated with oil wealth and childish tit for tat taking delight and pleasure in targeting the offender instead of the offence which continues to widen the crack of separation between our two major races. What is so difficult to forgive one another, bury the hatchet and change course? Every journey starts with the first step but we are patiently waiting for our leaders to surrender the past for a better future. Please don’t let us waste another five years to resurrect this monster at our 2025 elections.

Mr. President I realize that correcting what you have inherited is like starting a fire in rain but I want to assure you that this problem belongs to all of us and we are going to provide the shelter that you need for us to start treating one another with courtesy, dignity and respect. We are going to change our conversation to edify and encourage one another and follow the advice of the wise king Solomon who said “a word well-spoken is like apples of gold in setting of silver” – Proverbs 25:11 And may I remind all of us that God has blessed our nation with an abundance of wealth but nothing can be compared to “love” which is His most valuable and precious gift to the human race. We have rejected this gift for too long and are reaping the consequences to our shame and I will like to ask each one of us start to cherish and love our country and most importantly “love one another” and together we are going repair the damage which we have neglected for decades.

Let me assure you Mr. President that we want healing for our nation and we are committed to supporting you in our prayers and we are going to constantly remind and hold you to your promise which is “I will be president for all of Guyana.”

Harold Beharry