The fight for power, then where to?

Nov 29, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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…Hard Truths

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News- Many Guyanese prefer to point the finger at Burnham.  Oh man! was he bad or what, bad fuh decades.  So bad that four decades after his departure, it is as if he is still in the midst weaving his special brand of magic.  And mayhem.  In that early fight for power in Guyana, there were some citizens who gave of their all, so that success would grace their efforts.  And the visions of their leaders.  Cheddi Jagan lost that one.  Men and women and children also lost their lives.  The toll before and after is longer, no less grim: homes burnt, spirits destroyed, families broken, national assets damaged or destroyed, hatreds fanned and still flaming at fevered pitch.  The fight for power drives men and women to those sacrifices, even the ultimate one.  And then where did all that fighting (right or wrong) lead to, what happened?

Richmond Hill and Brooklyn stand as new and separate and distant Guyana(s).  Distant, but still here and embroiled in the ugliness that is called democracy.  Even those who made many a killing and much of a living from tyranny, delight to speak about how much they are of democracy.  Citizens couldn’t speak, but there was democracy.  Citizens lived in fear, but it was not tyranny.  Guyanese were forced to flee to hustle a living, starting from the bottom in any place that would accept them.  Even many of those who were in the bosom of the winners enjoyed the fruits of their tainted handiworks, found the next plane out after a time.  But their own country still ranked high despite the multiplicity of human rights obscenities, national leadership vulgarities, the decays that were so obvious all over.  In sum, to its core, that is a snapshot of where the ferocious fight for power led.  It’s revealing, isn’t it?  A harsh, but powerful and poignant, reminder of where the fight for power led, and what it did to a country and its citizenry.  It is a memory that won’t let many Guyanese forget, won’t let go of those willing to limit themselves to what proves their points, enriches their bank accounts, or allow the worst to fester inside of them.  After several cycles of brutal fights for power, the crippling failures of leaders, this is where every road terminates.  Then restart.

The year 1992 opened the door to a restart.  It started out with backs to wall after another bruising fight for power (what else was new?) and looking uphill at the near insurmountable.  As the years passed into a new millennium, the right way was found to be demanding, so the easy way was chosen, has become the norm.  The five-year seasonal fights continued, the jangling quarrels continued in the aftermath, and Guyanese continued to fly and then flock in unfamiliar enclaves.  What else is there left to be said, with one more keyboard letter pressed?  Guyana is so good, Guyanese leaders are so great, but there are Guyanese citizens going crazy to get as far from here as possible.  Power, the most intoxicating of aphrodisiacs, can also be abused to deform into the power of the most determined assassins.  Well, is this not what Guyanese have had here?  It is why so many seek the sanctuary of silence, so few (the foolish) are left to toil.  The roads and buildings help.  Where is the human quality, the leadership integrity, the governance morality and accountability?  I seek that indefinable, but very feasible, individual vitality.  I leave 1992 and somewhat unfinished, for it was the proverbial calm, if that license could be taken.

Along came 2020, and with it came oil.  Oil, of all things, as if Guyanese did not already have too much toxic self-destruction in their hearts.  The fight for power mutated into the monstrous, made the pitched battles of before look like kid’s play.  Somehow, nobody died.  But everything else did.  Truth died first.  Rigging was pronounced dead in one spot, but multiplied exponentially in almost every other place, haunts terribly.  Fairness died and was unceremoniously buried.  Justice died, but is ashamed to say so.  Those are among the deep wounds that came after the fight for power in 2020.  More are likely to come next year, in the unlikely event that the white people decide to stand on the sidelines and allow Guyanese to duke it out.  There is a self-check in place, though: no side wants to behave badly, come across poorly.  Not with all these foreigners putting up their money here.  Nor risk getting on the wrong side of that other champion of democracy residing in the White House.  Quick digression: in the perpetual fight for power in Guyana, the only ones who have escaped unscathed are the Americans.  The folks with the most blood on their hands are like Lady Macbeth: don’t stare at me, look hard and long at self.

The 2020 fight for power, where did it lead, what did it produce?  Working backwards, it produced a set of impotent leaders.  Oil.  All the oil in the world and their lamps have none, not a drop.  Then, it led, returned, Guyanese back to the past.  The yoke of foreign dominance.  The foreigners empower local leaders to oppress.  Democracy is a funny, clumsy, dirty, nasty story.  Deadly, too.  The PPP fought tooth and nail for power, but now doesn’t know what to do with it.  Other than to let the white man wrap it around the necks of its leaders.  Go tell the Guyanese people some foolishness, some cock-and-bull story.  The PNC is still fighting that 2020 battle, but the wrong enemy.  Itself.  It, too, has allowed itself to be awed by the power of the white man, his visions, machinations.  For himself.  After all the many wars for power, this is where its success has led.  Self-enslavers.  Grovelers.  Boot lickers.  Manhood has succumbed.  Nationhood has been vanquished.  Suddenly, both Burnham and Jagan loom gigantic.

(The fight for power, then where to?)

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• Brooklyn stand, hard truths, Many Guyanese, Richmond Hill, The fight for power

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