‘Ah did tell ayuh suh.’ Those who did were right. ‘Ah know dat matters were goin’ to come down to dis.’ Right again for all those who believed so, said so. I was among those who said give industrial peace a chance, give the process of discussion a chance. This must be made clear also: like many of the skeptical and cynical in Guyana’s population, there were serious doubts lingering in my bosom. About the principles of those calling the shots in the PPP Government. About how much they can be trusted. On the former there is no room for such niceties as principles; while on the latter, trust at one’s peril.
But there is still enough of the optimist inside to put aside misgivings and try for the civilizing influence of the table of negotiation. It is better to try and fail, than fail to try. Sad to report, the guarded faith was misplaced, the efforts doomed, and now hopes are dashed. Now, the evvel and soon-to-be (perhaps) striking teachers of Guyana are gearing up for another drawn out battle, with stations manned in the streets and along the roadways of Guyana. Guyanese live with a PPP Government and a PPP leadership that wage war against selected segments of the people, with only an official declaration of such a state left unsaid.
It doesn’t have to be this way, but the PPP Government is one that is set in its ways. Vanquish all at all costs. Dominance obtained by any means at any price. Guyanese teachers are on the receiving end of these dogged assaults from a government determined to pursue victory, even pyrrhic ones. The mediation efforts dragging to the table. The government people spoke in bright terms of readiness for the “conciliatory.” In view of the latest standstill, it was all sham, and sickly by way of substance. When a government prides itself on what distances itself from honesty, then matters peter out to where they are today.
The first unwritten commandment of negotiation is that there must be no rigid preset frame of mind. This applies to both sides in any negotiation. There must be a starting point, which is followed by a series of fallback positions, with each one a little more flexible and fluid than the one(s) that came before. When I study the PPP Government’s dug-in position of beginning from 2024, and not a year earlier, it is a menu made up of sheer madness.
By the same token, I would be daring enough to go out on a limb and urge the teachers’ representatives to be more open-minded to their line drawn of 2019 as the starting line. In sum, both sides must not hew to hardline stonewalls that all but destroy any opportunity for narrowing the wide gaps that exist. They which bring all conversations to a jarring halt. For emphasis, a little moving, a little giving, on both sides could lead to some place, some opening, beside the quagmire in which all are now fastened. Of course, this also ensnares the children.
I think that the union and its members may recoil from any such flexibility. For this could pave the way for more abuses by the PPP Government, where it holds a line, and any perceived blinking by the other side, enables it coming out ahead. Or claim to have succeeded in doing so and demonizing its adversaries while at it. Its leadership is one that takes the fullest advantage of any quarter given by opponents so that better could be achieved, often to the detriment of those doing the giving. Returning to the government’s steel coated position of 2024 being the new and unmoving starting date for hisse negotiations, my first reaction was to see that for what it is: a new insult to old injury. For what else is this tough guy, roughshod, business of 2024 has to be it, and no other time, as the latest imposition, the rankest unilateral position embraced by the PPP Government.
Then again, 2024 speaks at high volume for what has become part of the continuum of what appeals to the top leaders in a callous and depravedly indifferent government. This has been our way, and this will be the way. Twist it or turn it, try to find any element that is ethical about it, and it still comes down to the same result. The PPP is a government committed to chronic and wanton disregard for what is required by law. When a government cannot find it in itself the goodwill to treat its citizens on a fair footing, then it is not a government in the slightest sense of the word. It is nothing but a gang.
The government is such a warrior against its own citizens. But it is such a weasel and a wimp before those who grind the heels of their boot into the faces of Guyanese. Frail of voice. Bowed in posture and bent in knee. Before foreign exploiters, both president and vice president give every indication of those who have developed softness in the head. But when it comes to the workers of Guyana, the PPP Government is a raging bull. It charges blindly. It will collide with the unexpected. Resentments grow. People remember.