Editorial – Welcome to Insight

I was taking a walk on the sea wall near my apartment a few weeks ago, thinking on the dire state of the world, of my grand place in it.  What can you do, Ruel Johnson, I asked myself, to make this world a better place, to heal the children, to reverse climate change, to remove the indecency of pineapple on pizza?  As I sat (I am now sitting, the walk made me tired) on the seawall, ignoring the constant stream of Spanish women in tight gym clothes vying for my attention and tittering about “Aye, El Guapo” as their electric Latina eyes greedily fed upon my supple dad bod, it came to me in a revelation.

Your destiny, Mr. Johnson, I told myself, is not to be distracted by these muy calientes mamacitas but, as you are entering middle age, to finally start that web portal that you keep procrastinating in starting, like that fucking book you writing like ten years now but never finishing.  My phone suddenly rang, and this was clearly a sign of divine providence, and a young man named Roger was on the line saying, “Ruel, my name is Roger, let us build a site.”  I corrected him and made sure that he addressed me respectfully, as I address myself, and so he said, “Mr. Johnson, let us build a site.”  I paused for a minute, contemplated and said “Roger that”, and he said, “What?” and I said that was just my middle-aged inclination to a Dad joke referencing the sort of popcorn American police procedurals I grew up on in the 90s via pirate Guyanese television.

Out of many hours of discussion, this is what we have come up with.  Insight is at its core, a weekly publication of information, analysis and high-quality feature journalism for consumption by the Guyanese market.  This is an age of the simple captioned photo, the 30-second clip, the quick scroll, and all the intellectual malnutrition that comes with.  In this era of Guyana’s transformation, and in this season of heated political contest, far more than that is necessary if we are going to create and sustain the society we need and we deserve.

My political leanings in this season are clear.  I believe that the incumbent is by far the best, most competent machinery to take us into the future I believe is best.  That belief will inform much of the content of this portal, but the idea is also to open a space for credible dialogue, the presentation and interrogation of policies from all players.  I believe that a government is eventually only as good as the opposition it faces, and part of my purpose is to ensure that we develop a far better quality of opposition than obtains at present.  Additionally, and this is critically important, this is going to be the most trusted source for information on the basics on our electoral system in general and electoral process, from today, Nomination Day, to the elections of September 1, and beyond.

Finally, the content of this site is curated to remind us that there is life outside of and above partisan politics.  That is why you are going to see articles on arts, culture and society.  This will be a space for the publication of poetry and fiction, for writing on travel both within and out of Guyana.  I will manage and be the major contributor to this platform, but as it grows, this will increasingly be a collective effort, a grand table at which, as a family, we can eat and drink and talk and quarrel and find consensus.

This is a project long in consideration and I intend to give it my utmost effort in establishing and maintaining the level of journalism that I’ve envisioned.  Come along with me. Pull up a chair.  Whip out your phone.  Let’s have some deep Insight into this amazing country of ours and our beautiful and worthy people.