Dear Editor,
As New Year approaches, it is time to make an appeal to politicians and citizens, especially those who participate in public conversations. Though uttered before, this appeal is still fresh; though tired, it remains meaningful.
To politicians and officials and leaders, there has to be an awareness of the anger, disappointment, and despair expressed and experienced. They should not retreat, for those who raise hand and voice in protest are not enemies, only concerned citizens seeking answers and relief. They should not offer sedatives, as no one is lulled into a sense of comfort or security. Most of all, they should not respond with scorn and dismissal. Instead, they should listen to the cries of the many interested in living in a drug-free, truly inclusive, and cleaner society. They should listen to those who question official truths, and who challenge existential political dogmas.
The hour of institutionalized political illusion and elusion has come and gone. They need to move this nation forward; move it in unison; move it now.
To citizens, the appeal is to obliterate the generations’ old horizons that inhibit thinking and vision; that hold truth hostage. The challenge is to use channels wisely to convey, and not confront. Too often, voices are so loud that hearing and listening suffer to the detriment of messages. Too often, the grinding of axes and emotional venom play right into the hands of those lurking in search of the familiar. Those pressing the empowered must be responsible, principled and unrelenting in the quest for solutions and improvement.
Given the critical issues, it is well to avoid the trap of trifles, the convenience of equivocation, the partisan slings and arrows.
It is time to reinvent ourselves; to discover that we are willing to start anew and not be held hostage to a hoary destructive ethnic metastasis. It has been too long that leaders can cleave us asunder with the sword of division. Who is prepared to take the first step? To cast the first stone? To purge the demon that makes cardiac cripples of us all? Who?
In a nutshell, this appeal is the willingness to proceed beyond the dichotomy of black and brown; to progress beyond the symbiosis of PPP/PNC, and to elevate beyond all that has failed, embittered, and divided. The time has arrived to go beyond talk, and to walk the talk. Yes, walk the talk of purpose, courage, and sacrifice. I make this appeal without arrogance or challenge, knowing full well that I, too, have been lacking.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall