H@rd Truths By GHK Lall – Farrakhan, Malcolm, Ali, Stokely

Jul 23, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – In my younger days, I misunderstood and disagreed with some remarkable figures in the Black American pantheon.  As the years passed, some refined their public expositions, but one hasn’t to any discernible extent.  But, now in the sizzling cauldron of Oil Guyana, I can identify with, and finally appreciate, their pain and anguish, their anger, and their impatience.  I speak in no particular order of Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, Mohamed Ali, Jim Brown, and Stokely Carmichael.

When Malcolm X in his younger days raged against the “white devils” I recoiled in horror, seeking the safety and ‘purity’ of distance.  Along came Cassius Marcellus Clay who transformed into Mohamed Ali, the incomparable boxer battered for his beliefs about the rights of man, and the plight of his people, I again rushed for a safe harbor, so far I was from what he stood for, what he expounded so sharply, so majestically.  I was the same when American football immortal, Jim Brown and Trinidadian Stokely Carmichael stoked the awareness of the brutalities meted against their brethren.  And Louis Farrakhan, who would dare to go near his rants against all things white?  From this man who used his following and bully pulpit as a barb-edged whip against the atrocities of the white man, I reeled and retched.  Too much.  Too harsh.  Too extreme.

In retrospect, I must have come across as placid and unconcerned as Michael Jordan, and all those other Black American multimillionaires who love where they are, the company they keep, how they feed the hands that rip the cradle of their people to shreds.  ‘I hear, but I don’t care’.  ‘I appreciate, but from my way, I will not deviate’.  Those were their likely attitudes.

Then Guyana called.  I came.  Like Magic and Ray Lewis, there was contentment, and psychic strength, from giving back a little, being about some more for and with those whom life had dealt punishing blows.  They are my own people.

Then Guyana found oil in copious quantities and in the perfect formula: plenty oil, tiny population.  Then realization came in swarms and torrents about the activism and realism, the cynicism and criticism, of Malcom and Mohamed and Louis and Stokely and Jimmy.  I now feel the rage of singer Harry and preacher Martin, as subdued and managed as the latter was.

I understand closely now that the exploitative ways of the White man, and the captive confines to which people like me are condemned.  I have a better grasp of house slaves and Uncle Toms and Aunt Jemima(s).  We are living today in Guyana with more than divide and rule.  We live with divide and with what destroys.  Isn’t that what the white brothers did in Alabama and Georgia and North Carolina just a few short decades ago?

The Anglo Saxons and Nordic and Gallic want us to mind our manners, and speak softly.  But they don’t want us to carry a big stick for our patrimony.  So, they surround themselves with flunkeys and lackeys in the PPP and PNC, and AFC, and push for people like me to behave and identify with thieves and liars, and those who sell the national birthright in fright, and without a fight.  I prefer the company of those in America who have been pilloried and excoriated.  I now understand completely why some in the PPP have to play the fool to earn their silver and prove themselves day in and day out.  What was the lot of Malcolm is now recognized; and how Mohamed transformed and transcended are goalposts that beckon.  I strive to make their way, my way.  As I say so, I still must hail and laud the efforts of the honest and honorable White people who gave so much for those who so little, often nothing.  They did so at great personal sacrifice, which I embrace.  I, too, much speak fearlessly.

When the tongue of our so-called mother is taken in the fullness of its breathtaking reach, and hurled into the face of abusers and violators, to strip their falsehoods, and expose their farces, they get their Guyanese Quislings to attack.  They did that in America to the illustrious names I have mentioned, and for a time I thought I knew why.  What was not known, not readily catered for, is now fully known.  It is the timeworn story of the White man getting one’s own to slash and bash their own for a cheap dollar.

This is why one Guyanese colored man dances many a jig.  This is why so many non-white Guyanese men and women complain and condemn their own because they fear their gravy train from the national wealth being hampered and derailed.  The white man robs at will, and the call is to behave self, be polite, be circumspect, and be politically correct.  The white man gave us his manners, his bible, to set us up so that he could rob us blind.  The sanctity of property supersedes the sanctity of patrimony and assaults the untouchable sanctity of Guyanese citizenry.

This was what Malcolm X and Jim Brown and Stokely and Harry rebelled against, and before them, there was a man named Garvey.  If Barry and Ali and Aubrey cannot be like them, and about what needs to be stood against, then that falls to those Guyanese willing to bear any burden and fight any foe.  I didn’t know better before.  There is not a single excuse now.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• Ali, Farrakhan, GHK Lall, H@rd Truths, Malcolm, Stokely

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