Dear Editor,
Our cup has rippled and shimmered and overflowed with praise and homage. It has been singularly impressive: Mandela! Mandela! Mandela! Amidst our own eternal struggles, the jaded searing afflictions of conscience, and the unheard dirges of the collective soul, what have we learnt? What did we learn from the life of this man? Where do we go as a people, and as individuals? Where do we want to go?
Instead of the presumptuousness of statements and postures, I prefer and try the quiet probity of questions ‒ clashing, to be sure ‒ to encourage caring, interested Guyanese to peer into the sacred innermost sanctums of his or her own patriotism; to search for the elusive specks of possible solutions; and last to pursue the fragile promise unravelled, if only to give ourselves a chance.
Are we prepared to allow the self-centred, the ignorant, and the crass to stride above us like so many Colossi indefinitely? In the first instance, are we willing to condemn ourselves, to consign ourselves, to imprison ourselves to a fate desultory and unacceptable? And in the second, are we (like the man we honour) ready to manage our own confrontational instincts, diminish our surging pugnacity, and redirect the gnawing impatience? Are we? Are we, instead, ready to give, and give without qualification, to suffer any indignity, to sacrifice, and to sacrifice supremely for betterment for ourselves, our children, our peoples? It will take, nay demand, all of this and much more.
If we truly love this motherland, if we detest with a sufficiency of intensity the appalling temper of our times and negligible existence, and if we care enough beyond the rhetoric and postures, then there just might be reason for hope, and for the spirit to creep tentatively forward, maybe even soar. Can we reinvent ourselves? Do we care enough to want to?
One man showed us the inestimable magnificence of a life inspiringly lived. Now the rest is up to us. I believe we can break free from the silos of indifference, and rise above the foundation of ashes, to rejuvenate our environment, our times, our very lives.
Thus I say let the accolades to this iconic figure be not a momentary, quickly receding echo of the polite and the obligatory, but a clarion call ringing in our heads and hearts to shed the bondage, to be dedicated to take the first step of many steps, to be willing to sacrifice to make a difference. Just like he did. The last question is this: Do we, as Guyanese, individually and as a people, have any and all of this within the national psyche and character?
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall