Dear Editor,
A few millennia ago, an ambitious Roman general was given control of the province of Gaul. Among the wealthiest, it was considered a plum political position. He previously had a brief tenure as governor of Spain, a much smaller province. While in Gaul, he exploited tribal differences, acquiring plunder and amassing tremendous power through wealth and a well-trained military. When he was eventually summoned to Rome by a Senate that queried his rapid acquisition of military might, the general marched his army across the Rubicon and seized control of Rome. Installing himself as ‘dictator for life’, using a series of legal maneuvers he managed to turn Rome into an autocracy for about a year.
Perhaps this is what we are facing in Guyana. A series of events that are leading to the attempted establishment of an illegitimate government with an almost pharisaical approach to governing by the rule of law. While we do not appear to be encountering any generals such as the brilliant, clever and ambitious Gaius Julius Caesar, we certainly do have a situation whereby the current outdated and outvoted leadership is seeking to be proclaimed ‘Dictator perpetuo’ rather than the more mundanely democratic ‘duly elected leader’.
What is happening in Guyana is nothing short of a slow-moving coup, a term heard often to describe the mostly bloodless seizing of power by those who hold officialdom’s reins. It is born of the madness that has clearly consumed those in Guyana who purport to be in ‘government’ at the moment. By even using the word ‘government’ one needs to ignore the threatening nausea caused by the thought that Guyana does not have elected officials with ‘lawful control over the affairs of a nation’ (ref Webster’s), but rather a group, or cabal with dominion that hopes to reign over whatever hell they continue to create in the country.
Mind you, unlike Caesar’s time, when a ‘dictator’ was technically a magistrate who ruled for a prescribed period, after which power would be surrendered, it does not appear as though power will be willingly surrendered, even after an election that has verifiably demonstrated that over 50% of the electors voted for someone else.
When did we decide that ‘dictator perpetuo’ would be Guyana’s established method of governance? Did we not conduct this experiment before? Wasn’t an attempt already made to conjure up the ghost of the most famous-est past dictator? That didn’t seem to work, unless one counts the current legal voodoo-istic measures that invoke the powers of Guyana’s legal system. An institution within which somewhat ephemerally, arbitrarily, the practitioners are free to pronounce like wizards.
Truly, I have wondered often about the mysterious legal system in Guyana, as to mere mortals it does appear to be a bastion of ‘summoning’ rather than the practice of mere law. Really, what could be more tortuous than what is currently being experienced at the hands of the ‘legal system’ right now? Does it not smack of devilry rather than ‘the law’?
Dredging up Julius Caesar as a last resort to understanding why anyone would want to subvert a Republic and the wishes of its populace has got to be a new low. Rome’s wanna-be dictator, at least, had a number of notable achievements for the state under his belt. He efficiently conquered errant peoples in the provinces and brought Rome enormous wealth. He consolidated personal military power while demonstrating his genius at military campaigning. Nothing as fabulous is remotely evident in the current dispensation that comprises the ‘government of Guyana’.
There are no useful words to describe what is currently happening here. A country that has already had its psyche and sense of self strafed by one would-be dictator, finds itself 35 years after his death facing a prolonged strafing by a poor man’s junta. Disgusting and shameful, as if Jonestown was not enough.
You, Guyana’s leaders, those who would hold our country hostage via the occasionally make-believe realm of the courts…none of you are Julius Caesar, and Guyana is no Rome. We have no vote by landed gentry nor a highfalutin all-male Senate. We have the vote of the people and they have spoken since March 2nd, 2020. Leave. Go. Take your ill-begotten or legal gains, whatever they are, let our country be. Let it heal, let our many races and ethnicities and peoples start to face a future together…a future that has been dramatically altered by a modern plague.
Yours faithfully,
Scheherazade Ishoof Khan
