That is the question, and the response could get one showered in vituperation or faeces or acid. This is the alarming trend and reality exhibited in the new democracy that is Guyana today.
To think is to invite opprobrium. The Big Men, Big Bosses, or Big Frauds seek well-rounded individuals in a brainless society: a shapeless blob that is unthinking, unresponsive, and unctuous.
Conform or else… The governmentally attached will correct non-conformers using stealthy men deficient in anatomy, but flush with dollars and imbued with the paraphernalia of power. Men who bulldoze their way over differences through the brute exercise of rented strength. Take your pick – politics, sport, questioning, writing, objecting, critiquing and a festering impatience, find release through the unleashing of underground forces. These are the non-existent letter writers, the blogger bullies, the newspaper editors cum presidential advisers – and the taxman. This is the white collar variety of political chainsaw operators assembled to conduct search-and-destroy missions for those who dare to question or challenge.
To question, and the obligation to press those who serve – one of the hallmarks of a real democracy – can now be the equivalent of a Chinese water torture, best exemplified by an outpouring of malice. To take a stand is to become an outcast of an untouchable kind. Conscientious citizens unwise enough to protest run the serious risk of incapacitation through the far reach of compartmentalized and insulated adversaries.
In an environment where politically nurtured phantoms once dominated the streets of conflict, there is the potential for, and occurrence of, graver blue-collar exploits; where intimidation originating in high rises becomes the preferred resolution to any concern. Genies influenced by the political cup whence they emerged. Today, paper progenies are manoeuvered to introduce smear and fear factors to every disagreeable engagement. The mentality is that anything is possible, and undiscoverable. Here is a country where paltry sums can cover from ‘accidents’ to fake robberies to final solutions to cover-up. Stated differently, it is a short step to coerce into silence; to silence totally, to incarcerate a nation’s mind.
Great care must be taken to say nothing of any of this; or recruits will come to get those who trespass against the mighty. Someone once said America is about “the right to be different”; Guyana has come to represent the right to be lawless, starting with the PPP government. No one wants to earn its enmity, to risk the ambushing and pouncing upon family. So the faint of heart kowtow, they refuse to see, they speak only silence. Thus a nation is characterized by the muteness of the sensible at the bottom, and the limitless crassness of the mulish at the top.
There are premiums for the compliant: acceptance, retention of sanity, and continuity. It is to be favoured, to be indulged with inclusion and membership in the club. There is room for the ‘well-adjusted,’ which has come to mean the elevation of fourth rate men in a Third World sinkhole. Mavericks and known characters need not apply.
Once again: to conform or not to conform? For some, it is not a question, or a matter of any searching internal debate. Injustice must be confronted and wickedness challenged. Like Sophocles’ Antigone, there must be resistance against the Creons of Guyana who seek submission through mental subjugation.
It is the subjugation inflicted through the encirclement of: Think not! Speak not! Toe the line! Bow down! Rocking the boat is perilous business in this democratic environment. Once strong men are reduced to the conformity of delegating to nowhere for answers on controversial issues. Read Synergy, for one. It is the safety of the silence of the lambs.
This is the wisdom provoked by hard questions, critical postures, and a restless quest for truth. Don’t bother me! Now get out of the way! Yet the time has been found to sneer at pseudo-intellectuals, and to shout down into silence through the abusive, the bombastic, and the loudness of those lacking refinement.
Conform or be belittled. Christopher Ram – chartered accountant and attorney-also chose to be a public commentator. The latter has led to a frontal assault in the Guyana Chronicle and attacks on his family. This is the creeping underground McCarthyism with roots in local political chambers. As reprehensible as McCarthy was, at least he was courageous enough to peddle his Mephistophelean business in the open.
Not so this PPP government; it will stoop to any subterfuge, condone any ugliness, pollute any channel to demonize with its virulence. And to silence into conformity. It is how offending citizens experience the brunt of the PPP’s insecurities through what Margaret Chase Smith identified as the “Four Horsemen of Calumny – Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.” Ram and Slowe can attest to this; so can Goolsarran and Yesu of more ancient vintage.
The government stands ready to cast out those who write of wrongs unmentionable. To write of 28 years of darkness is welcomed, but mention the 18 of overpowering Stygian blackness and the pitchforks are unsheathed. In Guyana, the nightmare of 1984 commenced in 1992; it continues. And so the cries of those who refuse to yield will continue too, since silence is not an option. Like Antigone, the embers of resistance burn; there can be no conforming.