Dear Editor,
The air is thick with conversations of political reaching out, and its believed societal benefits. The postures are exhortatory in the calls for finding a way forward, any way so long as it is forward. The postures and calls and the people behind them are hopeful, even desperate, as this on again, off again, sometimes bright, most times dismal exercises in the unrealistic unravel in the newest incarnations.
The thoughts, really searching questions I entertain are: What would national front government mean today? What do political realignments and partnerships promise for the future?
Unfortunately, I see only an expansion of the rushing metastatic self-centredness so embedded and exulted in today. I anticipate a satisfactory, more acceptable division of the spoils of power among those already chocking at the gills, and those arriving with empty rumbling bellies. This will be the upper floor and inner room inhabited by the contented Guyanese political elite. What is there for me? How much can I get and grab? What else is there to seize? For this has been – and will continue to be – the sad, ugly, tawdry nature of politics and political leadership in this country. It was so before, and it has never been more evident and abundant than in the last two decades. One more time: What is in it for me?
There are still more questions that should trouble every thinking conscientious citizen. Who and where are the authentically patriotic within the pack of aspirants, who care, who feel the pain, who understand and identify with the awful plight of the lesser and those without? Who is there who will put this country and its afflicted first? First, not in sweet speeches, but in meaningful uplifting deeds? First and foremost, not when it is personally convenient and rewarding, but on an unflagging basis? Where are those dedicated to self-sacrifice, if only to imbue the desolate of spirit with the mental momentum of a stirring example, and a thread of hope? The mental momentum that overcomes settled indifference, sweeping disgust, and chronic cynicism. The mental momentum which declares that Guyanese can have a new future and Guyanese can make it happen. It can happen because of sheer force of will, and because there is interest and care and an unwavering determination to get to that elusive future.
I have been against the hopeful tide, and unsparing in artic anger, because there is recognition of the insatiable lust for ongoing political hegemony – even on a diluted basis – on the one hand, and the burning desire towards asset accumulation on the other by others. In other words, to maintain the status quo by incumbents, and to share in the status quo by outsiders. Unmistakably, this is about self, about friends and family, and about every craven soup drinking hanger-on ready to seize what belongs to the forgotten and dismissed people of this land. It is the self-enrichment of a growing minority to the detriment of the enfeebled and castrated majority.
This is how I read and interpret the sweep of words and movements focused on political change in Guyana. Such are the scents and sounds, if not the taste, of the crippling political sickness that wounds all of those who really care. In short, there is nothing new under the sun here in Guyana; only more of that same unforgiving lethal heat.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall