Let's count our blessings
Editorial
AS WE fast approach the dawn of the magical number 2001, the New Millennium, most of us will look back at the lives we lived, and at our losses and gains. This is only natural.
For in trying to climb the mountaintops, and to appreciate where we have come this far, we can look back without regrets at the pebbles on which we stumbled, the rocks in our path, and the many hills that we have to climb.
What is applicable to us is also true for our nation.
We have come this far after great sufferings, difficulties and setbacks. But we have progressed, and we have achieved.
We must therefore count our blessings. We must reflect where we were at the beginning of the 20th century at our human condition, at our backwardness.
We were colonial subjects, deprived our inalienable right to freedom.
We were an under-developed territory, dependent mostly on the sugar plantations for survival. Under-nourishment and generally poor standards of living wasted us.
However, time travelled fast.
Yesterday's nigger-yards, Portuguese quarters and bound-coolie estates have been transformed. The ghettoes and hovels have largely disappeared.
Most of us can now access potable water, electricity, telephone, all-weather roads, primary health care and quality education.
We can now look back, not with regrets, but with a sense of pride and achievement.
We can say for sure that on the eve of a new century we are better prepared to meet the challenges of a world that has graduated into the so-called Cyber Age.
We cannot compete with the developed countries nor can we boast of the lifestyles of industralised states.
But we are better off today than we were at the beginning of the last century.
It is true that the sociological problems of racial divisions and the political tribalism inherited from the colonials are still with us.
But the process of integration is dynamic. Our Guyanese nation is now a great melting pot of races and cultures.
We have a common motherland and a common home - Guyana.
So, as we look back, let us know that ours have not been wasted lives. We have come a far way, and we have achieved.
There are things that we can cherish as common achievements.
We are entering the new millennium with greater confidence and a sense of destiny.
This must be the source of our optimism, and the basis of our strength.
We need this confidence that springs from pride as we brace ourselves for the new challenges that await us in 2001.
For now, let's eat, drink and be merry knowing that our blessings are many!
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