Dear Editor,
The courts are set to hear one of the biggest cases ever recorded in Guyana’s history, involving the Mohameds and the Government. My letter is not intended to take sides in this controversy. Rather, I want to showcase a point of view that may have been overlooked.
Many Guyanese who can recall the state of our country can remember that we were always second to Haiti in poverty. That alone can tell you about the challenges we had to face as a nation. For our country to be second to Haiti meant that almost everyone was struggling, including the “rich.”
Tourism wasn’t something we could have banked on. As I recall, the smaller Caribbean islands had many tourist attractions that drew visitors, something we could not easily tag on to. Guyana struggled to attract tourists to our country. Our beautiful country did not come with white sand and blue waters, which made the tourism industry difficult to tap into—even today.
To till the soil is what we had to do. Guyana worked hard to become known as the breadbasket of the Caribbean because we had to do the hard work of being the agrarians for our sister islands.
That being said, when I think about the Mohameds, I think I can understand why they went down the road they did, including the alleged breaking of taxation laws. People like the Mohameds had to find ways, sometimes illegal ways, of making it to the top because there were so few opportunities available to them. These were people who wanted to aspire to more than what our poverty-stricken country could offer. Succeeding in Guyana was a DIY task. We were a country void of opportunities.
Not everyone will be satisfied with eating bread and water. Some people want grapes, milk and honey, and that is a flame burning inside of them. I believe this is what happened with the Mohameds, especially Azruddin. He wanted to reach his fullest potential in a country that was stagnant.
Our leaders abandoned their duty to the people. Guyanese were forsaken, mistreated, undermined and denied. This is who we are when we look into that mirror to confront our past.
Am I saying it is right to do what the Mohameds allegedly did? Of course not. But I am saying: let us move forward.
Because of oil, we now have legal avenues for making it to the top. We need rich people in Guyana. We need our own rich people. How will it look to investors if all our people are poor and struggling? Is that how we want to be seen?
I am gobsmacked, like anyone else, to see how much our country has grown. Let us work together for the good of all our people—those here with us now and those yet to come.
Yours sincerely,
Pushpa Jagnandan
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