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Aug 24, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column
Kaieteur News – It takes a lot to startle and shock and stop me in the Guyana of today. Surprise, yes; but shock and make me come to a full stop: absolutely not. Well, my dear brother Bharat Jagdeo did so the other day. The facts are as follows.
A snippet of less than a minute from Dr. J’s press conference held last Thursday was played for me, and I was pressed for my thoughts on the fact that brother Jagdeo mentioned the word “morals.” Though I listen to this leader only when pushed, I jumped out of my skin, so incredible this was. Let’s face this simple fact: morals and the man are a stretch, a long, curvy one. What is the world coming to these days, where are we all heading, when there is the utterance of the word “morals” from Dr. Jagdeo, and all that it means? Obviously, the world is coming to an end. For there is the hard conclusion that he mixed up “morals” with morale. Meaning, that he was working furiously to give his flagging troops a boost; that he was engaging in one of his now patented pompom and gyrating cheerleading exercises, with a view to denying reality, which is because his tales are of the fairyland variety. When brother Jagdeo speaks of “morals” it is the equivalent of him showering fairy dust on his audiences, and blinding them to truth, justice, ethics, principles, honor, and the honorable, all sacred attributes; and all interwoven with the imperatives of “morals.”. To me. I still ponder about him, especially with this latest marvel from him.
For the learned Dr. Jagdeo enlightenment “morals” is more than the sexual; it envelops and encapsulates, then expands and extols, the transformational in leaders, the constant quest for the high ground by men and women, and seeing the same in others. Though the practices of Dr. Jagdeo as a leader, a politician, and as a person has been of what is curiously near darkness and the dark arts, I still insist that he can be redeemed (from himself), can be saved, and can be remade into the kind of person and presence at the peak of the pyramid of which most Guyanese would be pleased and proud. I would be humble enough to engage in a moment of rare self-congratulation that efforts have led to the wiser, the better, the cleaner from Bharat Jagdeo, a former Chief Executive of Guyana, now turned into a chief lecturer and chief preacher. About morals, of all issues.
Frankly, I appreciate this side of the brother, and offer up to upstairs a fervent prayer. No! I don’t pray to myself, but for others, including Dr. Jagdeo that his better angels will struggle through and make it through the ‘pimpla bush’ in which he has imprisoned them. Yes, I know that the man making “morals” his new mantra can be, shall I say, a bit on the mysterious side, but he is not beyond redemption. No man is that far gone, so much of dreadful wretchedness, that the graces of goodness and godliness, and the record of deeds suffused with righteousness, elude his hand and his heart. I persevere in this dogged belief, even though some of brother Jagdeo’s own people hold him as the personification of a four-letter word that begins with an ‘e.’ They ought to know, as they are near to him, have dealings with him.
Come to think of it, I am sensing a new Bharat Jagdeo in motion. For sure, it is a labored, uphill work in progress, with many slips and false starts and setbacks, but the commendable development is that a start has been made. He breathes heavily from his exertions. As a quick digression, reference is made to what brother Jagdeo made it his duty to reinforce and ensure that all Guyana heard during the last Local Government Elections. In the instance of former mayor, Lady Patricia Chase-Green, and her crossover from green to red, Dr. Jagdeo spoke of the ‘forgiving’ party that the PPP is. Ye gods, and little fishes…. Since the PPP is Jagdeo and Jagdeo is the PPP, then the significance of his usage of that word is that the man has mellowed, has found peace, and now knows what it is to be forgiving (well, at least, for political and propaganda purposes). I take him at face value, and say: way to go brother, tell them, soldier.
I take my leave by saying that intaking Bharat Jagdeo on ‘forgiveness’ and “morals” one must be careful not to take him too seriously, get carried away. I wish to give him the benefit of the doubt on his fresh stance on “morals” and many other things in life, leadership, and governance, but there are some conditions. There must be moral force, moral tone, moral truth, and moral proofs. In tight summation, or huge expansion, it boils down to this: ethics in government. Starts with ethics in leadership. And before that, ethics in the man himself, or the woman, as the case may be. Try it, sometime, skipper.
(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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