Latest update February 15th, 2025 9:17 AM
Jan 01, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column
By GHK Lall
Kaieteur News- All is quiet and still. It is calm. The air has fresh coolness about it. The atmosphere touches with expectation. A New Year has begun. I greet 2025 with a simple wish to all of my Guyanese siblings, each in the family of 750,000 or 800,000. Cubans, Haitians, and Venezuelans are part of the embrace, and so are Bangladeshis and any Kashmiris that are around. May 2025, the Chinese Year of the Wood Snake, foster those deep introspections that are a product of deeper soul-searching. A Joyful New Year to all.
I seek room to start with myself. Stocktaking is customary, even more compulsory at this junction. At the crossroads of life, it is imperative that the right choice(s) be made. Time is behind me; the best use is made of what is left. Whatever that number may be, it is dedicated to the Guyanese people. No one is excluded. The vilest scorner is still a brother, no matter how abominable a fellow traveler in this national journey.
A wish is extended, an appeal made, to Bharrat Jagdeo. No titles today, simply one brother to another: it is time to change. Standards. Methods. Adjust fears. Reduce lusts. Both can be done. Guyana will be better. Bharrat, YOU will be better for it. And so will I.
To my brother, Ali, to whom the honor of excellency has been appointed, I respectfully urge that 2025 be the helipad from which different points liftoff, are proved. Those that enhance country, inspire Guyanese, and with much still left for our American brothers and helpers. This can be done. In a more subdued manner, one that is missing any sting, related acids.
There is brother Aubrey, may 2025 be used to educate Guyanese about capabilities, inbred wisdoms. It is the Year of the Wood Snake. It may be oriental in construction and vision, but there is that tropical application that Guyanese need so urgently.
I look farther down the road, and there is Nigel, a brother and citizen of startling ideas. Here is the opportunity to look inward and see all those expectant Guyanese with their eyes cast towards the seas and what stirs beneath their beds, with their hopes rising and stretching. May those stay above ground, be fulfilled. It can be that kind of year that comes with peaceful feet in days that march ever closer.
Guyanese have had their highs, all 780,000 of them. The first sighting and correct reading, followed by the first lifting. Declining has been the season that has lingered since then. In a country as lushly gifted as this Guyana of ours, the path, the trajectory, should have been different. Different instead of difficult. Instead of enmity, I cast around for the engaging, that rebalancing of the mind, which leads to renegotiating of the…. I settle for circumstances. Those in which the citizens of this Crude Republic, of so many commodities, and so little sagacity. Its wisdoms pave the way with brightness. Scales fall from the eyes. Knots around the heart vanquished. Partners are cherished possessions first; seen otherwise last. The word I try to avoid on this first day in January is of three letters: N-O-T. The drive is to unearth the capabilities and national character that heave restlessly inside. In each one. Friends and brothers, neighbors and sisters and countrymen.
Fear of failure is for the fainthearted. On another day, in another frame of mind, fools may have been used. Today is a different day, and the hope is to set the tone for the days to come. Yes, I know, and we all do. Elections. In the wafting touch of a predawn chill, there is a bead of sweat, mopping of the brow. An iciness takes over the heart, the soul is afire. Indeed, the stakes that high, so big is the prize, so high the transfixing passions. The mind is a terrible thing to contemplate when driven to madness. Elections. It is Guyana at its most energized; Guyanese trapped in that incurable red haze that is theirs when they are most volatile.
To my brother Alistair (if I may be pardoned the presumptuousness), so much can be achieved together, instead of at, ah, odds. Alistair, defender of the people. Guyanese need Alistair at his authentic best: the best of partners, less of a governor, less a commander of the realm. Remember: a true partner, less a business dealer, lesser still of a political arranger. He has his duty. I have my calling. Guyanese would be more hospitable, sluggish with what is hostile. I know that he knows what is meant. Some must tell me how I am doing, in this endeavor to grasp for the right tone, to be tempered, succeeding would bring serenity of the spirit. In trying, there is living; dignifying time, environment, and existence. I must. We all should. In trying, there is gaining. The shortest of inches first, who knows where to, what more.
It is time to gaze into tomorrow, welcome it with hope and strength. Power of convictions, too. May all the tomorrows in 2025 be so for all Guyanese. As well as for those who make Guyana their home today. And for those who stand by our side, as worthy partners.
(Fresh and new, may it be)
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