Whither unity – on anything

Jan 12, 2022 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – It is the predawn hours, and I am thinking: where is this country going? Can it get anywhere, given its present state of mind, meaning that of its leaders and peoples? Where could it go, considering the partisan rancor and rancidness that are the deep-seated norm? Where could it end up, when the raw emotional power, divisive racial power, courses through everything and everywhere in this society? The trouble is, I think I know, but it is of those places that I go. In the next instance, there are some answers that don’t come readily, and of those, I am sure.
Editor, I will now share where all of this takes me. It’s not the finest of spaces at all. We had a brutalising span just recently followed by victory then great waves of the celebratory, mostly the self-adulatory. There was a grand gala of words at the National Cultural Centre in a splash called the inaugural. A lovely spectacle, it was. Lots of words like smoke from a dirigible. Since then we have lived with what is kindly called the collapsible. It is what I term the presidency, now reduced to a paper-bag institution.
One would have thought that after the cascade of rhetoric, that the courage (and decency, even integrity) would have been searched for, maybe found, to right the listing ship that is broken Guyana. It is broken, isn’t it? I believe it is more than divided, it is broken, and all the pieces are not in hand. Astonishingly, there is this mockery of something beautiful called ‘One Guyana.’ I love it. I really do. Except, show me the marbles, please. And this is the heart and soul of my thinking and writing at this unholy hour (perhaps?) is there anything righteous left in this society anymore, but that’s another story for another day.
I thought that the one thing that this country needed more than anything else, after that long, bruising (I did say brutalising) romance of December to August, that the first order of business would have been mending. Yes, it is as simple as that, and desired too. There I said it. Why and how? Listen a moment longer, please. A united people have muscle tone and muscle power. They get ideas – about unfairness of contracts. About having so much newfound wealth, and not tasting any returns from it. Indeed, $25,000 is useful, but soon yesterday’s newspaper. Unity means strength, and in that, there are all kinds of possibilities. Alarming to some! Unnecessary too, if the local political powers are listened to, save they dare not speak publicly.
So, they give the dirty job to the young leader. He craved the job, didn’t he? Well, let him do some work, who cares that it is a dirty job; many rolled into one. So, instead of sincerely (an extinct species here) working at healing, his orders have been to go the other way. And he has, which is why I thought that we have a fulsome paper-bag presidency. Look at it, and listen to it; chew on it, if such is palatable. A paper-bag is thin and fragile and shapable into anything desired. That is what we have, and there is total transparency. I remember now that there was talk about unity amid the rush of emotions spearheading the other two, which were transparency and accountability.
Editor, I asked to be pardoned, but somehow all three got lost along the way. Regarding unity, we forfeited every occasion that came and called for it, only to end up worse for such egregious failure. Sorry, it is almost automatic for me to use such words, which discipline now sends in another direction. There was that post national period (December to August) of perversity, obscenity, and what else, oh, there it is, utter stupidity. We let that one go early, as the boys had to celebrate. Then there was the phase one of the virus. Well, boo to you. Next, the waters came, aka the worst natural/national disaster, and it was the same Lone Ranger story. The wicked part of me whispers that there was resistance to outsiders seeing how the relief billions in both COVID-19 and flood went down. Well, blow me down, and they did. Then, came COVID-19 part two, and here we go again. From the side of my mouth, I mumble about that NRF bill/law. Come on folks, get real. Opportunity for unity? And share the booty? Get outta here. That’s where the action is, buddy.
Meanwhile, some people are delirious the way things are. No! they are not PPP supporters. Sorry about the ‘C’ left out, no offense meant. Incidentally, they are not even locals. Well, mouth open…. It is good to keep the natives this way, meaning, at each other’s throat, and that’s mighty fine, mighty fine.
Editor, that’s the sum of my thinking. It is the everlasting Guyana story, and it ain’t pretty. No sir, it is not. Oh, one more thing -the evil that men do, doesn’t live after them. It lives with them. The problem is, I have to coexist with this damn nonsense.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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