Dear Editor:
I was impressed by your excellent editorial of September 4th. You are right to speak so trenchantly of "the fires now searing the lungs of the world "
Thirty years ago I wrote a poem in honour of Chico Mendes, Brazilian labour leader and environmentalist, who was assassinated because of his campaign to preserve the Amozon rain forest. The poem, "The Sun Parrots Are Late This Year", is reproduced below. I believe it is now more relevant than ever.
Ian McDonald, Maple, Ontario
The Sun Parrots Are Late This Year
The great forests of the world are burning down;
far away in Amazon they burn,
far beyond our eyes the trees are cut
and cleared and heaped and fired.
Ashes fill the rivers for miles and miles;
the rivers are stained with the blood of mighty trees.
Great rivers are brothers of great forests
and immense clouds shadowing the rose-lit waters
are cousins of this tribe of the earth-gods.
Under the ancient watch of the stars
all should be secure and beautiful forever,
dwarfing man, generation after generation after
generation,
inspiring man, feeding him with dreams and strength.
But over there it is not so; man is giant
and the forest dwindles; it will soon be nothing -
shrubs sprouting untidily in scorched black earth.
The sun will burn the earth, before now shadowed
for a hundred thousand years, dark and dripping,
hiding jewelled insects and thick-veined plants,
blue-black orchids with white hearts, red macaws,
the green lace of ferns, gold butterflies, opal snakes.
Everything shrivels and dust begins to blow;
it is as if acid was poured on the silken land.
It is far from here now, but it is coming nearer.
Those who love forests also are cut down.
This month, this year, we may not suffer;
the brutal way things are, it will come.
Already the cloud patterns are different each year.
The winds blow from new directions,
the rain comes earlier, beats down harder,
or it is dry when the pastures thirst.
In this dark, overarching Essequibo forest,
I walk near the shining river on the green paths
cool and green as melons laid in running streams.
I cannot imagine all the forests going down,
the great black hogs not snouting for the pulp of fruit,
all this beauty and power and shining life gone.
But in far, once emerald, Amazon the forest dies
by fire, fiercer than bright axes.
The roar of the wind in trees is sweet,
reassuring; the heavens stretch far and bright
above the loneliness of mist-shrouded forest trails,
and there is such a feel of softness in the evening air.
Can it be that all of this will go, leaving the
clean-boned land?
I wonder if my children's children, come this way,
will see the great forest spread green and tall and far
as it spreads now far and green for me.
Is it my imagination that the days are furnace-hot,
the sun-parrots late or not come at all this year? |
Dear Editor:
In your issue of August 21, 2019, very much space was dedicated to inform the Guyanese diaspora on Guyana’s imminent “Oil and Gas Development.” Implicit from the grand prouncements at the town hall love-in is the massive monetary gains waiting to be had by Guyanese.
Judging from the initial monetary figures presented, it is apparent that many, many Guyanese, perhaps thousands and thousands more, will be needed to share in the spoils that the oil industry will gush out. Simply put, Guyana does not have the population size to absorb all the money forthcoming to the country!
At the town hall meeting an Exxon official claimed that the company has already been pumping money into Guyana by “supporting Guyanese workforce development, providing training to local businesses participating in the industry, buying from local suppliers, making a $10M (US) grant …”
Has anyone ever heard of a shortage of people to collect money from an oil boom?
No.
The reason is that in most countries, especially those that are called underdeveloped or developing, there are millions and millions of people and not enough oil money to go around for most poor souls. Money is also in short supply in those countries because, as it is well known everywhere, oil money from practically all those countries is pocketed by the politicians and the ruling elites of those countries.
Guyana would be an exception in the world for two main reasons. First, the country has far less than a million people. Few people to collect millions: anyone could do the math. Secondly, Guyanese politicians – past and present – have pocketed so much over the years that they are in no need to put their hands in the oil money barrel! Unbelievable but true.
A national fund will be set up to give all Guyanese a dividend from forthcoming oil revenues. Guyanese in the diaspora with a valid Guyanese birth certificate would have to register with the fund administrators when informed. Look out for the details. I am anxiously waiting.
Sridatt Lakhan., Toronto
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