Dear Editor,
I refer to the letter titled `GHK Lall letters abetting the riggers of the 2020 general elections’ (SN March 23). I have not read beyond the caption, and against my better judgment and wiser counsel, I have decided to respond. If I were to do otherwise I would be remiss, and thus contribute to what provides revealing evidence of how much our senses have deserted us, how we have lost not only our moorings, but also how much the narratives and visions that pervade will brook no other position. If this is agreeing to disagreeing, then the logic eludes me.
First, I congratulate Stabroek News for its choice of caption; as low blows go and unkind cuts may be, it doesn’t get any lower or any unkinder than that; I did opine on previous occasions that it is polluting to be in the public arena. Yet that price has to be willingly paid, if only to continue with what and how I see is our way forward. I plan to stay the course and run the race through the now more impenetrable thickets of prejudices which bedevil us and damn us, and never more so than during elections times. I should know better, but I am too stubborn to be different; too determined to retreat.
Second, and more to the point, I watched and waited while Elections 2020 went about its wicked ways. And that they were, with each passing day, sometimes hour. It is astonishing that I could be “abetting the riggers” when I am on public record in SN on March 15 under the title of “Elections results not credible” in stating, “I voted for the coalition. I want to see it emerge victorious. But I want to see it do so cleanly, persuasively, and irrefutably. I desire to be in a position where I can stand for any result, for any party, and say: I am satisfied. But I can’t.” This was also carried by KN and Demerara Waves. If there is anything ambiguous about that (“I can’t”), then there are difficulties that I am unable to address… I don’t think that I could have been clearer as to what is acceptable to me; I don’t how any “riggers” worth their salt would be comforted by such a specific call. If there is anything in there (or in any other written position of mine), that is “abetting the riggers” then we are in the worst possible place that may be contemplated; we are not listening, there is no understanding; and especially when what is offered conflicts with our own.
My position repeated for the record, and from twenty years ago, is that of God, country, and family. I trust that somebody in this troubled forsaken society will have the honesty to recognize first and then acknowledge my unflagging emphasis on country. It is of country first, and not of any party, be it that of mine or anybody else’s; it is of country foremost and always and never for any party. I am not that attached to the latter, not that blind, not that supporting nor unthinking.
This still infantile process of democracy of ours, now under the severest pressure here, as interpreted here is of nothing other than the results of numbers. The numbers are sharply disputed in most places, with those of Region 4 being the sharpest and most poisonous. It leaves us in the worst of spaces. For when the process of democracy (the count) is finally declared to be over, there still remains the daily process of the reality of living and coexisting together. Regardless, of whichever side wins, I foresee a horrendous future to be lived in this dismal place in the interlude before the circuses, cultures, and cleverness are resurrected a few years hence.
For all these reasons, I can never be a part of the passions and prejudices that poison us and render us comatose, if not mortally maimed. I did say that I have neither fear nor concern about being contrarian. Well, it has got me where it has got me: a possibly bigger abettor to the riggers than any Returning Officer; a bigger and better aider and abettor and condoner than those who rage ceaselessly about the merits of their respective sides.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
