Almost half of this book, Stolen Hope and Stolen Dreams, is dedicated to explaining power and politics in Guyana especially since independence. This country is now the third poorest nation in Latin America behind Haiti and Nicaragua. This book explains how this came about and who were the major architects of this disaster. A large portion of the country's population has left the place depleting the nation's most critical and important resource which is its human capital. Many Guyanese in the diaspora still have relatives, friends, acquaintances, and other needy folks, etc. in the country who they are supporting via remittances and they are concerned about the state of affairs in the nation. When people visit the land of their birth, they are troubled by, and fearful of, the high crime rate in the country. This is discouraging visitors to the nation. When people don't travel there and spend money, it is further depressing an already poor economy. Things are getting real hard in the nation. Almost one-third of the population live in poverty and it is tough to eke out a living in the country. The sad part about this whole thing is that people are not optimistic about the future. That is why this book is titled: Stolen Hope and Stolen Dreams. People are just not hopeful that things are going to get better. Bad politics and poor governance have contributed mightily to the beggaring and pauperization of this once thriving country which a Guyanese writer once described as a tropical paradise. How did Guyana went from a tropical paradise to being a place from which everybody there wants to leave? Guyana's post-independence politicians are the culprits who caused this disaster. These fellows are a group of bad actors who are not interested in learning from their mistakes. They keep doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. Right now these chaps are expecting a huge windfall from oil discoveries. We shall see if that really materialize. In the meantime, they are just mucking along hoping and waiting. For me, it is sad to see what happened in this country. I love the country a lot but I do not like what is, and has been, going on there. Friends say it is a great place to visit but you can't live there. In a place of such lawlessness, you can never tell what can, or will, happen there if you visit the country. It is certainly not like it used to be. Someone described it as follows: This time na lang time, bai. Very true. Very true indeed. Read this book to get a better understanding of what has happened, and is happening, in Guyana. Would you like to know why everyone is trying to leave Guyana? Who you like to know who engineered this disaster in Guyana? Read this book and you will find out. Even though you no longer live in Guyana and do not ever plan to return there to live, you should be curious with regards to what is going on there.
About the Author: Dr. Hanif Gulmahamad is an American of Guyanese descent. He is a scientist, author, poet, and writer. This is the fourth book he has published. He has also published over 81 technical and scientific articles. He is a consultant based in Ontario, California. His writings about Guyana are based on his experiences having lived under British rule and subsequently thereafter under post-colonial rulers. I write these books to document and preserve our history, culture, custom, heritage and traditions. I lived the history so I am uniquely qualified to write about it. I was born in a Logie at Springlands Sugar Plantation and I have a first hand knowledge of life under British rule. Many people of my generation have departed this life and it is important and incumbent upon those of us who are still alive and able that we should tell our story. If these stories are not told they will be certainly lost in the passage of time. Guyana is a country with a unique history. The ancestors of the two major ethnic groups in the country were brought there as slaves and indentured servants. This history of this country was forged in blood, sweat, and tears. Except for the native peoples who lived there before Columbus, the rest of Guyana's people are immigrants. Because of bad governance and lack of opportunity in the country, there has been, and still is, a second emigration of Guyanese to North America and other foreign lands. This deracination has caused Guyanese people in the diaspora to feel a lack of a sense of belonging. When a person is forced to leave his/her mother country for economic, political, or other reasons, that person suffers from a sense of loss in the soul. This is something that cannot be easily replaced. Immigration and exile is one of the most dramatic and fearful event a person can experience in life. When a person loses the sense of close family relationships, cohesiveness, and belonging, that person has lost something special and precious. The United States of America is a country of immigrants and many books have been written about the immigrant experience here. My own immigrant experience is a unique one having migrated here from a close-knit community and a place of strong family relationships to a place where none of that existed. It is not easy to be an immigrant in the land of the free and the home of the brave.