By Stabroek News

Copyright stabroeknews

Dear Editor,

Regardless of how dearly I hold flags, Guyanese in official capacities – all callings – should be more mindful of the sacrosanct nature of such national emblems. Flags must flutter proudly; not stutter weakly. I should be taught by those who are perched high, not they by me. There were three Americans in that picture of a flag desecrated, the Guyana flag dropped to a naked, undignified level. The Guyana flag is not the business of Americans; definitely not their priority. I may not agree, but there is understanding. What interests me is how those three fine Americans attached to EMGL, would have reacted if there was an American flag weeping on the floor. An American flag looking as though it is some part of a preparation to sweep the floor. Whatever I think of Exxon’s people, one thought trumps all others: there would never be an American flag collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Men have died, so that other men can live and honour Old Glory. I point my fellow Guyanese (and Americans) to that immortal, iconic raising of the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima after a ferocious battle in the Pacific theater of World War II. I can see that flag raising in my mind’s eye. I can never see Mr. Alistair Routledge standing tall and proudly holding a token of achievement relative to Guyana’s opulent patrimony, while the Red, White, and Blue has been reduced to floor carpeting. Neither he nor his EMGL colleagues would ever dream of such contempt, disrespect, for the American flag. I quietly submit that there’s a standard, a lesson, for all Guyanese.

Going forward, I regret that Mr. Routledge and I will part company. It encircles Exxon, and how Guyanese belittle themselves, surrender their substances, enslave themselves to any yoke, so long as it has a writing, an advertisement, on it. The yoke takes the form of a shirt, a polo or tee, or a cap. I look and learning comes. It isn’t the kind of learning sought or wished; certainly, don’t need. Plastered across Guyanese chests, encircled around many Guyanese heads, emblazoned on countless Guyanese backs, there is that word, that dogma, that searing, piercing surrender: ExxonMobil.

A contract was once held as the handiwork of the devil himself, a partnership that was once reviled, a confluence of circumstances that energized Guyanese to rip each other’s liver out, but there it is. Guyana’s gaudiest, slickest, trashiest commercial: ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil on the mind and from the mouth, ExxonMobil in the clothes and deep inside the nose. It is Guyana’s national fashion statement of fashion statements. I have heard about the dangers of secondhand smoke, when it is trapped in clothes and closets. But when Exxon takes up residence in those places, danger disappears and surrender take pride of place.

I tip my hat to Mr. Alistair Routledge. Well done, good sir. There! Guyanese eating out of Exxon’s hands. Over there! Guyanese dressing up their children and great grandmothers in Exxon’s colours. And everywhere! Guyanese kneeling before Exxon’s throne. For Exxon’s and Mr. Routledge’s enlightenment, I reinforce a local truth. In Guyana, patriotism of the kind that Americans live and die for is an anachronism. Who cares about a Guyana flag on the floor? A flag forced to the foul state of sharing space with shoes and socks (that were washed, hopefully). It was more than a skin-crawling instance of the Guyana flag draped in the ignominy of an untidy sprawl on the floor.

It’s reflection and confirmation of the bottom-level place that Guyana occupies in Exxon’s orbit. A dependent nation, a sovereignty, that’s the vassal of an oil company. When ExxonMobil could be the tattoo that is proudly worn across various parts of the body, then the position of the Guyana flag tells its own story. It’s in the right place, well-positioned to be used as a cloth to polish the Tony Lama cowboy boots of the men from Texas, and the Manolo Blahnik heels of the Exxon ladies from wherever. I shudder.