To the president- a courtesy

Jan 27, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall 

Kaieteur News- Skimming through the pages of SN’s Sunday, January 19, 2025 edition, I had to pause abruptly in midstride.  “Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting.”  Strikes an appreciative chord, I must say. I was about to peer beyond the arresting banner, then came to an abrupt halt.  There was the name of the glorious one hailed: Donald J. Trump.

By now no longer President-elect of the United States of America, but Chief Executive in the flesh and in the chair.  I did promise to say nothing of this great American until after the100-day honeymoon of his second marriage to the American presidency and the American people. But I do ask the courtesy of breaking that self-imposed sabbath to say that he does have some mountains to level, compliments of his Democratic predecessor.  Having gotten past that handicap, there is now a duty to do.

“Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting.”  Whoever is the real source of that placement, whoever is the deep-pocketed paymaster, many thanks.  On behalf of the Guyanese people, it is my humble duty to place that at the feet of His Excellency, President Mohamed Irfaan Ali.  To stop fighting is to surrender.  To refuse to start to fight is that abject fate reserved for the worst of weak men and women.  There comes a time when being about illusions and casting weak spells run their course, peter into nothing.

There is that time to start fighting, to continue fighting, and never stop fighting (refuse to stop fighting). Laak ah sed, it rings a bell deep inside of me.  Guyanese who mean well, who listen to the driving dictates of their conscience, are not the enemy to be fought, and tarred and feathered, Mr. President.  There is that partner who is anything but, and if there is found a greater treachery, I beg the favour of being properly enlightened.

When I watch my president, the dearly beloved chief of proconsuls of this Republic, Excellency Ali, I recall that line from Dante Alighieri: “Eccovi l’uom ch’e stato all’ inferno…”  (See, there was a man that was in hell).  Regrettably, in the most challenging hour of his reign, President Ali still finds himself trapped in that place of mortal terror.  He discerns too many threats, sees too many tribulations; he fears too many demons.  Thus, he refuses even to begin fighting.  If there is no beginning, then there is no refusing to stop fighting, for the battle has not even been contemplated in the narrowed recesses of the mind.

The only fighting I see in this country is one that is a tragedy.  Like Josef Stalin of Old Russia, it is that devotion to exterminate other ways of thinking, those that run counter to the sweet official narratives of party and state.  The two are the same, come to think of it, as local circumstances have long confirmed.  That is not fighting by my unique way in the weighing of these things.  It is surrendering by engaging an enemy that exists only in the imagination, one that still instils chills.  The Guyanese people, at least some of them, are not the enemy, Excellency Ali.  The day that I betray this hallowed Republic is the day that I go into self-imposed exile.  The minute that I can’t rise for it, then one sad day would that be for me.

Since the quotes are flying freely, I have a gift for President Ali.  From Francis Bacon: though few are the statesmen that have “penetration of judgment” I still urge Guyana’s beloved head of state to reconsider and stand at the head of his assembled, and fight for the national cause.  Penetration of judgment is sound, with broad strains of the profound.  Exxon must pay.  Please Mr. President: this is the time to refuse to stop fighting for Guyana.  Stop fighting Guyanese.  Embrace that motto that could have been that of St. Augustine –festina lente (hasten slowly).  The Guyanese people must behold that they have a president, and not a pawn of oil powers, a puppet of superpowers -one from the distant East, the other from the too close West.

My closing offering to the president is simplicity itself: “Whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report…”  Those are the magnificent patriotic things that must be done.  I try, sir.  Let that be the record for posterity.  We all must keep trying.  How about it, Excellency Ali?  They are more than worth living for and fighting for bravely, untiringly.  They are worth dying for proudly.  Like that banner said: “victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting.”  I so believe, I so subscribe.  So should President Ali and his company.  I doubt whether I am the only Guyanese who is of this cast of mind.

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

(To the president- a courtesy)

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• Guyanese people, hard truths, surrender, United States of America

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