Dear Editor,
I have spent a year on the sidelines observing life in Guyana at arm’s length and up close. It has – and continues to be – a fascinating and disturbing exercise. What follows is but a mere sampling, and is representative of some of the more visible surface flotsam. I hope that it helps some of us to dare to think, and to be always willing to probe deeper.
I start at the top of the dunghill. There is an elected monarch who, even when coy, attempts to eke out an extension. A “poll” is conducted and the results blared in the people’s propaganda paper. The very next day that same paper greets the nation with a headline about a referendum on a possible third term. No subtlety or sophistication; not even a testing of the wind, but a contemptuous slap at Guyanese in the manner of: there it is, take it or leave it for it is going to be.
Slightly before, and right alongside that miasmic crown, there was this hullabaloo about the institutionalizing of polygraph tests. Absent robust scientific support and legal admissibility, a not too unreasonable idea. That is, until one notices that ministers are exempted from any such scrutiny and process. The master of obfuscation was mercifully pointed: policymakers are excluded; no more, no less. It has been obvious for a long time that this political aristocracy has been above the law, and operates beyond it; all that the HPS did was confirm that once and for all time. The reaction of the public was… well, there was almost none. That is how jaded and beaten (and tortured) we have become.
Moving along, I watch Guyana on trial in Brooklyn. Years ago, when I warned of a certain plague being our gravest national security threat, and the perception of linkages, I certainly did not envision the government and nation stripped naked in such a manner. Rather, I saw something more along the lines of what happened in Africa a few months ago. For those who stared at the incomplete canvas before, here are the dots and swirls and brush and paint, compliments of what really is the tip of an iceberg. A large, and now known tip, but still a mere tip, all realities included. Consider what follows.
A white lady passed on after decades of a near incomparable presence and contributions. But there is another white lady around, one that is even bigger than the huge shadow of the departed. The present one stalks the land and demands human sacrifices, both black and brown, for the dazzle of her charms and the tingle of her seduction. Oh, this omnipresent and omnipotent white lady is with the narcotocracy in their tinted chariots, their barricaded castles, and conducts what passes for business from those towering local skyscrapers. As she holds her current paramours close, there is no time – and only scorn – for the human detritus that litters our streets and market places and rural enclaves; stark testimony to the potency of her addiction and the road thereafter. Remember: fast money woman always brings corruption, exploitation, death, and untold destruction wherever she surfaces. Simply take a look at the revelations out of Brooklyn, the mayhem of Bogota, the “rebellion” in Buxton. Or the streets and storefronts of Georgetown on any given dawn.
In the midst of all of this, the world is in the throes of a rattling financial crisis, thanks to America in general, and Wall Street in particular. Not too long ago, the word in Guyana from the political helm was, “Crisis, what crisis?”
He knew what he was talking about for construction has continued apace, conspicuous consumption remains unabated with the powder set, and corrupting lucre flows endlessly. Ralegh et al did have it right: This is El Dorado centuries later and with sparkle unimagined.
This is a mere snapshot of things that stare all of us in the face, and egregiously so. I can go on about the Clico debacle and insider action (trace the withdrawals and timelines); the spectacle of internal corruption allegations (check with Nagamootoo and Norton); men urinating in all parts of the capital city at all times of the day and in full public view (not the mentally challenged); that apan jaat has dismantled the ethnic lines (once one is lactose tolerant); and kith and kin represent shadowy tribe(s) momentarily united by dirty dollars and deeds dastardly. But enough is enough.
I close by saying that one thing is clear amidst the corruption, political infighting, and the nexus of public figures and clandestine private powers. It is that as a society we lack values and guiding principles. This can be said of the top, middle, and bottom; the same holds true whether looked at by race, class, or community.
Every day there is the relentless and overwhelming environment of players that seek to reduce resistant citizens to the lowest common denominator, and to the sullen and seething fold of the fallen and cowed. It is obvious to me by now that the land that I loved (and still do) so much is but a memory.
It is also that the yearning for what was once close to an ideal is now lost perhaps for ever.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
