Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 06, 2020 Letters
DEAR EDITOR,
I refer to the letter by Samuel A.A. Hinds titled, “I favor inclusive governance rather than a shared PPP/C and PNCR cabinet” (in another newspaper). My thoughts and positions follow.
From the very first sentence in his epistle, “It is not too early to be earnestly thinking of Truth and Reconciliation amongst all our people, for the good of our people and country” the honourable Mr. Hinds (he is that to me) reached into the essence of something I hold dear. It is interesting that he marshaled and deployed that most consequential of words “truth” three times in his writing, as he strove valiantly to emphasize its relevance and its significance; three being an accepted biblical standard for emphasis.
Even as I applaud Mr. Hinds’ he need not emphasize truth and reconciliation to me, as I subscribe fully to such thinking and visions of his and anyone else’s; and to that call I add my paltry pen, my faint wilderness voice. What we have is not working, in its sum it hurts. But it does more: for it fosters more than political competition and political differences. It breeds hate. Vile and venomous hatefulness, with viciousness internalized and harbored deeply. We cannot build anything on such a foundation, such heartfelt passions: not as individuals, not as a nation. The negative energy is killing us; for even in victory, the rest of the country is condemned to the fate of perpetual losers (as someone kindred spirit wrote).
As I agree, I say stay still for a moment and absorb our conversations, if you can; then ask where to and to what? Where to and to what, given where we are and how we are in the seething chambers of ourselves? If each of us were to spare a moment to look at self, there would be recoiling. But still we walk around with these burdens, first historical and now of the very present, proudly claiming that we know what we are doing, we like where we are, and we will get somewhere.
So, we insist on maintaining a divided house, while insisting further that it stands on the firmest, truest of foundations. We have become the Fathers of Falsehoods. The past and the present have been wrecked by those fathers and falsehoods; now the future holds the same: racial hating, social simmering, political sabotaging, individual and collective suffering.
It is why I say that we must be willing to look honestly and closely in the mirror that is of us, examine ourselves critically, and pronounce ourselves unhappy as to the decayed state of our appearance and condition. Maybe then we will admit that the pendulum of national negativity, national debility, and national instability will continue to swing unceasingly in the dreary monotony of our limited and unsuccessful existences. For all these reasons, I assert that we need Truth and Reconciliation, if only for the national good, the individual clarity, it should produce.
I say further: let us be brave enough and principled enough to want to know what is wrong with us beneath the torrent of our correct words, outside of our so carefully constructed public postures, at some height above the uncleanliness of us all and it all. Let us get to the core of the truth about us (me and you), and the missing ideal of the promise of this society.
It is not too early; every day delayed, is one wasted hour too late. Elder Hinds and I may disagree on many things, but on Truth and Reconciliation, there is oneness of earnest soul. I have one interest, one objective only: where such could take us. At the least, it could help us to ease our demons out of the darkness of the national soul and prepare a welcoming for any light that could shine in its place.
I heard Mr. Hinds (from the title) about inclusive rather than shared governance. I could not agree more. For whenever I speak of “shared” and “unity” and “national front” and the other fine roads not travelled, I go beyond the major parties identified. Though this may be an affront to Mr. Hinds, I have long gone past both. My personal history has been of hard and harsh decisions involving separations from ones long held close. I have since modified myself on a guarded basis. I mention that, because as much as I recognize that the two bigger parties are going nowhere and are essential and unmoving components of Guyana’s political process, I do what is within my control. That is, I move myself away, I do not belong. That is my truth and with which I have reconciled myself.
Like Bro. Samuel, I urge all Guyanese brethren: let us consider carefully and let us give Truth and Reconciliation a chance and a place in our hesitant, still resistant searching for the healing that has either been denied or eludes. My reaching and urging extends to all, including those on both sides of the divide, and for whom I have had grave misgivings. See! I have started internally to reconcile myself with what needs to be done, to help this nation (and myself) to go wherever it carries.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
Apr 19, 2024
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