Dear Editor,
So, Vice President Jagdeo has a problem with an SN editorial. It offends his sense of fairness, balance, and justice. Imagine that from such a renowned figure. Indeed, he has earned for himself the renown of someone who has a special version of truth, which alone must stand.
I processed his bitter complaint: ‘it is as if we never did anything right’; amid the stridency, that lament also had a pitiful whining echo. Unsaid and unexhumed are the huge excesses, the many wrongs-institutional gutting, pretenses at truth, avoidance of truth, full-out secrets, cover ups, evasions, disingenuousness, and the lightning blasts and rolling thunder of silence. Silence blinding, silence deafening about what is really going on in this territory. Like oil. S&P (please don’t holler pun dem) just said that Guyana’s proven reserves at least double what is shared now. Mouth open, story jump out. But not out of Exxon. I ask again: What’s really the full story with this patrimony, inclusive of reserves, expenses, and other items that cost (scalp) us big?
Then, what about the cost of living, Dr. Jagdeo? Should SN, and I, look the other way, when there are so many “high income” Guyanese hustling to scratch out a meal and a snack, if they are resourceful, every day? Guyanese existing with constant economic pain is neither figment of imagination, nor population fragment, nor phantoms.
With all the loans taken, and to be taken, and the hundreds of millions of Yankee dollars from the Oil Fund, why are these many Guyanese hungry and needy? And faint from fear, frustration, too little food, less to give their children?
Since time immemorial, Dr. Jagdeo’s rage has been the standard response of potentates and pathetic political leaders. Jagdeo is a king in that company, but one with an abundance of sores, and pus to match. They smell bad, and look bad. In essence: strangling messenger and mangling messages. Putting on my missionary cap, I extend a hand to my flaying fellow citizen, for the more he flays away, the more he muddies the waters and himself. Instead of an expensive dual role-defensive and attack dog-propaganda machinery to deceive the nation further, govern correctly, lead cleanly, speak openly, stand honourably, and 90% of the differences evaporate. The independent media then has nothing with suspicious substances, or of a toxic nature, or a corrupt stench, to report, opine clashingly. Truth is the best defense; plus sanitizer; has genuine aroma. Guyanese believe. Thinking Guyanese, not rabid, dewy-eyed party fanatics.
I could boost, but Jagdeo’s output must withstand scrutiny. It can’t be just because he said so, it is so. It is not just about splashy numbers, but what was behind them: how spent, who and what were favoured, or ignored. The people’s pain is a real leader’s pain. It’s his truth, his mantle, his agitations before the proper external faces. Observing Jagdeo’s baleful condemnation of SN, I go back 20 years to the city of Boston, recalling many eerie parallels. Boston has a majority Catholic population; the only one among the huge American metropolitan cities. Many powerbrokers and those in the vast public service network were Catholics. Police, prosecutors, judges, social workers, the legislative and political class, and so forth.
When the Boston Globe began to report and report more on sexual abuse by priests and cover ups, the Church’s response was dismissive: anti-Catholic. This was followed by the contentiousness of falsehoods, exaggerated, overwrought, sensationalized. The reality was of bishops, archbishops, and even cardinals doing their profane best to sweep crimes under the carpet. Sounds like the PPP Government with so many things, doesn’t it? Secrecy reigned, denials abounded, victims paid off, records sealed. Sounds like the PPP Government, doesn’t it? Known predatory priests were protected, transferred to other areas, and their crimes minimized. Sounds like the PPP Government, doesn’t it? In the PPP Government’s instance, it is not just for sexual violations, but financial ones, oily ones, and governance ones, too. Trust violated, citizens scarred, trusting people hurt, as seen firsthand in Boston.
The Boston Globe persisted, prevailed. Slowly, the civilian and legal apparatuses, largely Catholic, came around. Truth and justice overtook. It is a lesson for Guyanese media, and Guyanese, especially public servants. One for me. Be conscientious, stick to deep-seated convictions, act. There will always be a Vice President, a former president, a current and former minister to rant, deny, and denounce others standing for the right as dissenters, critics, naysayers, more. Jagdeo did, and so has Ali. I love these guys like brothers, but it is tough love. Truth must rule the realm.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
