It is when one begins to let his/her mind be composed of what is illusory about a person, place or thing that ignorance and stereotype begin to shape his/her psyche. Illusions, misconceptions and half-truths solidify the mind into deadly enmity, or dearly infatuation. Once the mind is nurtured and hardened by the ills of ignorance, it becomes an extremist, hovering in the realms of being demonical and fanatical; resisting every ray of truth and reality that will inevitably and naturally perforate his/her myths. By being brought up or allowing illusions, misconceptions and half-truths to mold one's outlook, the tools for reality begin to dysfunction and the twisted mind is born and unfortunately cherished. Man, the blessed spiritual being, then misses the essence of life, its real beauty, and life's meaningful purpose is poisoned.

I cannot help mirroring an instance of my own psyche's development in ignorance. Luckily, I kept my eyes and mind open and yield to reality. It was first time I crossed the Berbice River, or any river for that matter. I was seventeen years old, and thanks to the Apprentice Training Centre at Port Mourant and our warden, Joe Benjamin, our camping had been planned for the Essequibo coast, and I would, in one day, cross the Berbice River by ferry, Demerara River by bridge and settle for two weeks in Vergenogen on the east bank of the Essequibo River.

I did not sleep the night before the crossing. My mind wandered that moonless night as I lay in bed. I wondered what these places, new to me, would look like. I day-dreamed that night and formed mental images of the stelling, Rosignol, Georgetown, Mahaica, Abary; in short practically every place I heard of on half the coastline of Guyana. I have never seen these places before and my mind fashioned images, one after the other of what these strange places would look like. That was fun, until my mind suddenly slipped into what the crossing of the river would be like. It would be my maiden voyage across a river and I began almost unintentionally, to liken my maiden voyage to that of the Titanic. In my own illusions, half-truths and misconceptions, even ignorant of the fact that icebergs would never float in Guyana's water, I began to hate the very idea of crossing the Berbice River, fearing that like the Titanic, tragedy will repeat itself with me aboard. I was reluctant to give myself that chance to imitate the Titanic's maiden voyage; yet deep inside me, I felt a faint glowing sense of triumph that I will cross without a peril. Then, slowly, I became helpless when my fears overtook that glimpse of triumph. My mind was wrapping itself in gloom and cultivated a bountiful crop of hate for the river.

Today I still remember vividly the real images I happened upon. They are imbedded in my memory, playing like a videotape in slow motion, one after the other. On that day, as the ‘real thing’ replaced my saturated imaginations from the night before, I remembered a sense of contentment trickling inside me. I remembered vividly the greenheart pile I sat on at the stelling, the long ticket lines, the unruly traffic zigzagging, the hucksters and the hustling of people in their pursuit to get along with the business of their lives. Almost everyone waiting to cross the river seemed unperturbed by my idea of a Titanic-like tragedy.
As the subtle jubilation of reality struck me, the stubborn fears of Torani’s sinking conflicted my mind. When I soaked in the sight of the river and its surroundings for the first time, I was engrossed in the majestic beauty of nature in the form of a vast body of muddied water that appeared to be rocking its way towards the Atlantic Ocean. The interplay of the strong northeasterly breeze and the powerful northern flow of the water made the waves appear as if the river has in it numerous hammocks, rocking Torani along its way towards us from Rosignol to New Amsterdam. It was as if my very conflicting mind was that Torani rocking by that interaction of forces of nature.

When I boarded Torani my fears gripped my mind stronger. Each time a heavy truck, laden with produce or some other goods drove into the lower deck, I felt that was the moment of capsizing. Under the weight and movement of the truck on the giant turntable, Torani tilted in slow motion from side to side, stretching the minutes of my agony. It appeared that the passengers and vehicles took an entire day to get aboard.

I escaped to the upper deck when Torani drifted away from New Amsterdam stelling. As Torani glided across the Berbice River, New Amsterdam became smaller and smaller. I felt the ease and smoothness with which the heavy steel structure of Torani conquered the rocking waters. Although steel is denser than water, the ingenuity of man kept it afloat on water. The waves I feared just moments ago appeared from the banks as conquering, are now conquered by the knowledge of man. Figuratively, as the waves now appear helpless against Torani, so were the grips of my fears, my illusions, my half-truths and my concept in ignorance about crossing the river. I realized this crossing was akin to me learning to ride a bicycle, and began thinking what would it be like if it were a fierce stormy day. I think, and it’s only a thought, that I found the answer. Man’s life is a constant battle against the elements. He understands this and uses his experiences, the reality of life and nature, and his logic to combat or harness reality to his advantage.

Today a fierce storm is engulfing that land of many waters, Guyana, and many innocent people are crossing it daily. It is being fueled by political and intellectual illusions, half-truths and misconceptions. The people habituating in this land of many waters are living on illusions, half-truths and concepts far from reality for a little less than half a century. The gist if the matter is that the dominant races of ‘coolies’ and ‘blacks’ have been duped into fearing each other. They are ignorant of the fact that it was not their will to fear one another. It was the will of external ruling classes, namely the British Imperialists and the self centered American CIA who administered the doses of fear for one another. Today, that imposed fear has grown and is so matured that it is next to impossible for it to be uprooted and destroyed. It grew, and is continuing to grow deeper and deeper roots in the mind of ‘coolies’ and ‘blacks’.

It is one thing to have fears flourishing in the minds of coolies and blacks, but it is another thing to have fears fertilized. It is the cardinal duty of political leaders and intellectuals of a society to dispel the fears of racial insecurities in a multi-racial society in which they operate. In Guyana, the majority of political leaders and intellectuals are doing the opposite. Yes, it is agreed that politics is a dirty game and politicians turn the best cheek to the people, but deep underneath, the real leader or intellectual will never jeopardize his nation. He will never fertilize the seeds of ethnic divisions sown by outside nations on his soil. He will feverishly defend all ethnic groups and unmistakably coin them his people. On the other hand, the mind of a twisted opportunist does the opposite.

The difference between a leader or an intellectual who has sincere love for his people’s and national development, and an opportunist who craves power, whether political or otherwise, is simple. It is revealed when asked the simple question: “In whose interest?” Hitherto, there are few Guyanese leaders, namely Jagan and Rodney, and to a lesser degree, Jagdeo, who will answer that question: “In the interest of the people, the nation.” The others, from Burnham to Hoyte to Dev, the many others, past and present, and those poising as intellectuals on Guyana’s TV shows are those who will never answer that question directly. They will sum up their imaginations instead, like I did before I crossed Berbice River. Their opportunistic instinct is revealed and manifested in their illusions so sharp and cleverly crafted, that one is led to believe that it is the reality.

Hoyte believes that Georgetown and its immediate environs is Guyana. Like Burnham, he does not operate and represent anything outside of that region. The half-truth of Georgetown and its PNC majority belonging to Guyana is the basis of Hoyte’s illusions. Hoyte has locked himself into the rigged elections machinery he helped to formulate when he was the PNC representative on the Election Commission in 1969 and the sentiments of Georgetown’s hard line opportunists, that his concept of the Presidency of Georgetown is the Presidency of Guyana. (Wouldn’t that be an interesting contest if Hoyte snaps out of his dreams of being President of Georgetown and run against Green? Perhaps, at this time it is the only alternative he has to fulfill his life long dream of being President of Georgetown.) Hoyte believes that the rest of the country is irrelevant, and by unleashing violence as his predecessor Burnham did in the sixties in Georgetown and its environs, his dreams of defying democracy and becoming President is certain. The older Hoyte gets, the more stubborn his daydreaming gets, the less likely he has the strength to face the reality that people outside of Georgetown and its environs abhor his term of President of Guyana and as Opposition leader. A leader so engrossed in daydreams will continue to unleash violence on anything that mutters democracy, even his pal and bosom friend, Haslyn Parris.

As for Dev, it is pathetic that he ran for the Presidency of ‘Coolies’. He is charting a dangerous course in Guyana’s young democratic life. As Hoyte increases his policy of violence in and around Georgetown and ‘coolies’ become more and more disenchanted with the present PPP/Civic regime, Dev will extract that much votes from the PPP/Civic ‘coolies’ and hand Hoyte (if he manages to live that long), an unexpected democratic triumph in the next general Elections. Would Dev be man enough to say then, “I have been warned?”

It is now time that people in Guyana call themselves Guyanese, not ‘coolies’ and ‘blacks’, and this and that. It is time the older generations who are alive today and experienced the power of unity prior to 1953 sow seeds of racial harmony of that time to dispel imported racial bias. It is time that Guyanese begin to feel free to elect and support a color-blind Guyanese President. It is time that the leaders, particularly Hoyte and Dev, the intellectuals, the talk show hosts, the people of Georgetown and Buxton cross the many waters of this land and eradicate once and for all the fear of ‘coolies’ for ‘blacks’ and vice versa ‘blacks’ for ‘coolies’. It is time these daydreamers awaken and feel the warmth of Guyanese outside Georgetown and its environs, where in their homes they practiced their cultural heritage, but when they interact outside, they weave the harmony of different cultures into a Guyanese thing, the real thing. It is time each ‘coolie’ and ‘black’, especially Hoyte and Dev, kick-start this Guyanese thing and make Guyana a paradise.

I learned one thing: the real thing requires the real experience.