Segregating, Steering, and Weeding out Undesirables

Segregating, Steering, and Weeding out Undesirables

OPINION BY: GHK LALL – August 2026

What are those people doing here?  Yes, those people!  Why does space have to be shared with them in restaurants and supermarkets?  This great, sweaty, unwashed mass of bottom-of-the-barrel Guyanese.  I don’t think that Exxon’s people, others in that classification, would be so undiplomatic. They wouldn’t be caught dead pronouncing so vehemently (what could be interpreted otherwise) on ordinary Guyanese seeking a glimpse of what it is to live large.  How locals and foreigners live on the cream of oil rich Guyana. 

Not one would do so publicly in these politically correct, supersensitive times.  The PPP Govt, however, is concerned about the masses intruding in places with special ambience.  Coming uncomfortably close to Guyana’s rich and famous.  Upscale supermarkets and restaurants should be off-limits for those who can’t afford them.  If supermarkets and restaurants today, is the PPP Govt’s scheme to segregate, to steer, and to weed out Guyanese undesirables could it  spread to real estate.  Guyanese receive early clues of a bunker mentality, a state where silos proliferate.  Or, as said in another writing, a creeping form of economic eugenics.  Cull the unworthy.  Oust Guyana’s ordinary.

Inviting affordability but Forbidden?

Poor Guyanese aspire.  They have oil.  They wish to elevate themselves.  A bag of foreign bread; cookies for the kids.  Ow, let the people sample nah maan.  They may not have the money, but they have ambition.  Who doesn’t want better?  Who does want for their children to have a better life than them?  Now, even that’s frowned upon, found fault with, denounced.  What’s the objective?  If the foreigners have serious problems with their own compatriots in their native lands, how much tolerance can they have for Guyanese?  Raucous, boisterous, Guyanese.

Frankly, what I see underway is a push to separate the rich from the poor, the princely from the pathetic, and the people in the penthouses from the people on the pavement.  Objections, anyone?  The word from above is, forget about sharp, slick malls, with wide aisles and lushly stocked shelves.  Even the shopping carts have an air about them.  Stick to the Bourda Market Mall.  Fetch basket and stay there. 

The richest class in Guyana has the money.  They should be able to spend in comfort in the supermarkets and restaurants of their choice.  Not have to mix and mingle with Guyanese minions.  Nothing sours a slug of Johnnie Walker Blue than contemplating the closeness of commoners.  Adolf called them undesirables.  Uncle Joe termed them parasites.  In India and Rwanda, cockroach has gained traction.

So, what is beginning to take shape in Oil Guyana?  I think it is segregating, steering, and weeding out the multitudes from the midst of the majestic.  Stay in corner.  Be contented among own kind.  It came glossily packaged.  Care and concern for the welfare of Guyanese overdoing things.  It’s a sign of the future.  The segregated Guyana state is becoming more audible.  They only thing left to be done, to communicate what should be, is to hangout a three-word notice in front of restaurants and supermarkets.  No coloreds allowed.  Real estate communities were the first casualties.  Now it’s exclusive eateries (or what should stay that way) and shopping emporiums that Guyana’s poor better not set foot inside.  Not even the parking lot.  A subtle warning was already given.

Follow the facts.  Separate schools for the moneyed class and foreign contingents.  Queen’s College isn’t good enough.  Separate places for giving birth for PPP highfliers.  Guyana’s world-class medical facilities, not so world-class, after all.  The rich cabal wants their own reserved spaces.  The upwardly mobile wants more oil action for themselves.  Both hold their noses around the lower orders, seek to keep them at a distance.  Keep them in the barrios and ghettoes.  Let them frolic there. 

Nudge them away from plush restaurants and fancy supermarkets.  It’s how Guyana’s higher side lives.  The segregating and steering of Guyanese have begun.  Weeding out of undesirables more vocal. 

I submit, Guyana is now a bunker state.  A state of silos.  One hell of a sick, sorry, state.