Democrat, autocrat, despot

Nov 08, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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…Hard Truths

By GHK Lall

 Kaieteur News-There is the letter of the law.  Then, there is that great unmapped landscape termed the spirit of the law.  It would help enormously if Guyana’s paramount prince of the law, Attorney General, Mr. Anil Nandlall, SC, QC, MP, were to develop the capacity to tell people like me why there is harassment and attempts at intimidating into silence.  Why is there this desperate need by his beloved PPP Government to smear and slander citizens who speak their mind, who articulate their conscience, to send cowering into a corner?  What law, Mr. AG, is being broken?  Are there other laws that stand outside those that the Guyana Constitution guarantees?  Please be kind enough, bold enough also, Mr. AG, to provide some much-needed clarity.

The claim is that Guyana is a democracy.  Then there ought not to be the smallest issue with any citizen of this republic exercising the right to disagree, even to critique.  Not as President Ali defines and decides, but as free-thinking men and women here seize those honors for themselves.  Surely, relentless efforts to control thinking, to manage the sound and substance of local narratives (messages), can only be about autocracy.  Help me, Mr. AG.  Guyanese are listening, waiting.  As a priest once told me, ‘The fear during the Burnham era was distinctive, a physical blow almost.’  Now, when Bhar-rat Jagdeo rises to his fullest height to shutdown dissenting voices, then I submit that is Burnham at his lowest.  Democrats or autocrats?  Democratic leaders or despotic ones, tell the people, Mr. AG?

Some have argued over what is what and who is who in this consideration about democracy and autocracy.  They should ask me.  They should identify my crime.  I challenge from President Ali to Vice President Jagdeo to AG Nandlall: where is my crime, my lords?  Name them, please, Excellences.  A democratic government and a leader with democratic instincts should not fear citizens of my standing (nor any other).  Nor should I wonder about them and where they are with this business about democracy.  Democracy is like beauty.  When seen, it is known.  When touched by it, it is commended.  On the other hand, what is there to recommend Guyana’s democracy when it has chased 99.9% of its sons and daughters into their underground bunkers in apprehension of some retaliation?  I would make the case that if the apprehension is only imaginary, that a bad precedent has still been set, a bad seed still sown.  By somebody.  Somewhere.  At some time.  Are Mr. Nandlall and Mr. Jagdeo still with me?

So when I hear about democracy and autocracy and many a fancy theory from PPP Government advocates, an ancient memory stirs.  One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.  Subtitles: One neighbourhood’s democrat is the next one’s tyrant.  Turning back the clock to almost 25 years ago, something else came. Amid the shower and thunder of debris from the falling World Trade center tower, the only thought was that the hijackers were the evil ones who had it so wrong.  My own partisanship blinded to the grim, and now today’s grisly, realities of others.  Gaza!  The summary is taut.  If the tables were turned, who would be the war hero, who would be the war criminal?  I call that my jaded Nuremberg moment.  I am still in Guyana, sharing about Guyana, with not one foot stepping outside, not one stray thought encroaching.  Democracy or autocracy?  What do Guyanese have to deal with: democrats or despots?

Citizens who are moved by the call of duty to speak up and speak out should never be criminalized as subversives.  Democrats don’t do that; autocrats so do.  To call for trusted oil stewardship shouldn’t convert some Guyanese into seditionists or undesirables to be oppressed or parasites to be crushed.  The AG knows that I have many grounds from which to point to his PPP Government and attest before any tribunal that there is autocracy in the flesh and blood.  I hold aloft before the AG, all Guyanese, and the corps of foreigners present Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, Vice President.  A man with his own particular brand of renown, a former president, who was pleased and proud to defame me based on ‘rumors that he heard.’  Whether secondhand rumour or twenty second, that’s Jagdeo, primus inter pares in the PPP Government.  It may be held as the activity of a democrat.  I insist that it is the style and substance of an autocrat in action.  A despot that must have his way, as deformed as it is; one who must have the only say, however scrupulous or scurrilous, such may be.

From real life, we (me and you) can comfort a fellow that his hunger is understood, and his grief merits sympathy in a time of bitter loss.  Unless the actual experience of both hunger and mourning are known, then all that is offered are platitudes.  No matter what the certitude or the rectitude, a platitude is a platitude.  I know the first two, and can recognize the last three whenever they are present.

A government, a leader, or a state is democratic when one test can be passed.  The most discomforting critic, the most revealing thinker, and the most outspoken citizen is made to feel constitutionally secure.  Actually believes so.  Physically.  Psychologically.  Environmentally.  Government and leaders must be his or her most formidable protector of their rights.  If not, autocracy does more than creeps.  It soars.

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

(Democrat, autocrat, despot)

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• Attorney General, GHK Lall, hard truths, Mr. Anil Nandlal, unmapped landscape

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