ESCALATOR FEVER
Peeping Tom
Kaieteur News
January 1, 2007
Thank goodness for Forbes Burnham! Had it not been for Forbes Burnham, we would not have something to excite scores of Guyanese this Christmas.
That excitement was generated by the installation at the City Mall of an escalator. Hundreds of thousands of Guyanese have never experienced a ride on an escalator.
Most of them would have only seen an escalator in movies and therefore its arrival in Guyana was far more thrilling than the arrival of the first Logos ship to these shores.
From the first day that the Mall opened, and continuing right through to now, there have been thousands of persons going down to the Mall just to experience what it is like to ride on an escalator. Crowds can be seen hanging around inside the foyer of the Mall just waiting to see how persons would negotiate the ride up and who would "chicken out" and refuse to take the ride.
So infectious is the "escalator fever" that even during his Christmas walk-about, the President of Guyana was invited by shoppers to take a ride. He must have been befuddled as to why this request was made. He may not have been aware of the "kicks" many people have over seeing others trip during an escalator ride.
Of course, the President would have seen and ridden on an escalator over twenty years ago as a student in Moscow . Now, as a student of political history, one hopes that he appreciates the implications of Guyana finally in the year 2006 having its first escalator.
I first saw an escalator in the seventies. It has taken over thirty years for this device, used to move people up, down and along floors, to reach Guyana. Trinidad , as I recall it had escalators in the eighties, yet Guyana has its first escalator twenty years after that country.
In the seventies, when Trinidad struck oil, they used to boast that oil don't spoil. Guyana at the time was enjoying extremely high world market prices for sugar, bauxite and to an extent rice. When Trinidadians would shout, "Oil Don't Spoil!" Burnham would retort, " Oil don't spoil, but you cannot eat oil. "
Sort of ironic coming from him, who had Guyanese not have an escape valve, would have starved in their agricultural-rich country
Quickly after the turn of the seventies, oil prices soared and despite enjoying preferential prices of our primary commodities, the economy of Guyana went into a tail-spin after a period of squander mania by the PNC administration.
Trinidad put in their escalators and Guyanese were forced to walk long distances to avoid high transportation costs.
Even in those days we had elevators. I recall traveling in elevators up to the Chinese Dragon Restaurant on Savage and Robb Streets; there was another elevator at the American Life Insurance Company on Hinck Street.
Quite a few elevators could have been found in the city, but these quickly went into neglect because of the inability of the owners to obtain foreign exchange and import licence permits to bring in parts for the maintenance of the elevators or because of the high operational costs.
When of course the blackout blues started, elevators were abandoned because not many people wanted to be struck in an elevator during a blackout.
Before Buddy Shivraj introduced an elevator system for his complex on Sheriff Street, you could, if you had the privileges, enjoy a ride in the elevator at the United States Embassy or at the Pegasus Hotel.
That it has taken so long for Guyanese to experience what it is like to ride on an escalator is a real tragedy.
While history has been moving forward, we were held frozen in time. And the reason is that for the greater part of twenty-eight years, during the rule of the PNC, we went from being the pride of the Caribbean to being the second poorest country in the western hemisphere.
Can you imagine that some of those small Caribbean islands that can fit into some of or own islands in the Demerara River were able with only limited natural resources to surpass Guyana in terms of per capita income. What an embarrassment to this country.
This happened because we got left behind, and when you get left behind and at the same time your country runs into terminal neglect, it takes ages for you, if ever, to catch up because while you are trying to regain the levels of output that you would have enjoyed say thirty years ago, these same small islands were building on the progress achieved while you sunk into ruin.
The tragedy of Guyana 's independence has been that it was placed in the hands of Forbes Burnham. When you go down to the City Mall and marvel at the excitement that the escalator is creating amongst local folks, think about the backwardness that the cooperative socialist experiment left us in.
This is my caution to all Guyanese as we begin a new year.
Happy New Year to the entire Kaieteur family,especially to the publisher, Mr. Glenn Lall , Uncle Freddie, Uncle Adam, Marcia, Gita, Sarah, Mike, Nigel, Sean and everyone else too numerous to mention.