Dear Editor,
A week after the obscene Kissoon matter the stench grows stronger. Two questions beg for answers: Absent any rush to judgment, who is behind this stinking behaviour? And avoiding any final conclusions, from where does the smell pour forth most overpoweringly?
To begin with, consider the possibilities: madmen, street walkers, a staging, the opposition, a personal vendetta, or government people; the accidental and mistaken identity can be discarded.
First, eliminate madmen and street people, since most do not have cars, or access to the now ubiquitous white ones. Second, the vile nature of the attack rules out staging, as only way-out hardcore rockers – or the sick – would willingly associate with such matter.
Next, even if the opposition were to claim responsibility, no one would believe. Thus, the scoundrels of the latrine can be reduced to either the personal or the governmental.
The claim of a vendetta looks on the face of it rather rickety; an unnecessary high-risk manoeuvre with low returns, now that Guyanese have grown more unrestrained at settling scores more stealthily.
It is a line of thinking to which the state-owned media inserted when it rushed out the personal angle. If the state possesses information on this angle, there is an obligation to share with law enforcement.
The state should refrain from claiming privilege; it has a duty to intervene on behalf of the injured, and a vested interest in displaying clean hands, especially given the identity of this particular victim.
Therefore, the state linkage supersedes the enshrined private media right and responsibility to protect sources, particularly here.
If it emerged it was not the personal angle and government’s hands were in fact soiled, then this country would have gone to dogs of the most diseased kind, and a foul premeditated assault of unprecedented vulgarity would have been perpetrated. It would signify that this government – already demonstrably mean, petty, and vindictive – would be reprehensibly dirty; that this government would have covered itself in excrescence in full public view.
Separately, Dr Randy Persaud must be commended for his unequivocal public expression of personal outrage. Where are the others? Surely, the leader can spare the time, and the class, to share his disgust. That is, if he is disgusted.
Let this be said: I am discomfited on occasion with Mr Kissoon’s unique approaches and postures, but the man should not be subjected to this repugnance; no human being should be so targeted. It could be that having first plastered the bottom houses, the inevitable next step was to progress to smearing from the outhouse to silence. From all appearances, this is the roiling cauldron of emotions and practices that have come to characterize a disintegrating political culture.
Now tautened lines represent the visceral antagonisms; they are irreparable. Yesterday it was faeces and acid. To where will this nation descend tomorrow?
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
