Dear Editor,
The air crackles with the stain and stench of those glorying in the self-description of warrior, and the swagger that comes from testosterone purchased in bottles. The question that rushes forward is: warrior or weasel or wimp? Let’s see.
Anyone can claim to be a warrior: any coward, any bully, any buffoon, any bum, any loudmouth, any ignoramus. Such claims are particularly louder and more insistent when the heart and spine are stabilized by the unsheathed steel and coercive power of a willing apparatus, be it official or private. Thus there are these startling blasts from the chambers of the damned and desperate (and despicable, too) , which will pound the consciousness for some time to come; and gouge at the eyeballs, if only to remind this society of its continuing descent into a dark endless bog of depravity.
It is enlightening that in this place, those that rank as skunks, speak of roseate sweetness. They pretend at peaceful constructs, accuse adversaries of hostile intentions through violent means, only to confess publicly of their own ability and willingness to remove the recalcitrant and obstreperous by those same sanguinary means.
Here is the parade of a pathetic battalion of so-called warriors: one loves trees, but abuses the flesh; another educates in the art of what is feral; and now there is one more who comes to boast of an arsenal loaded with frightening, naked asininity. Somehow, it has eluded these self-congratulatory warriors that a true warrior (by any code) is one who stands for justice and for right, and who makes his environment better, while sacrificing all in the mere doing.
Where do we go from here? Do we have the will to climb out and move past the quick-sands of our history, our time, our growing tragedies? Do we?
I said to someone the other day: ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’ This I believe, but I do have my doubts about that in Guyana. I also said that blessed is Trinidad for a Kublalsingh; but he would not work here. Not here, not now. What I envision unfolding is embodied in one word, one name: Spartacus.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
