I think we should pray for our leaders

Mar 15, 2019 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

I see this looming elections-race as more than a test of numbers or tests of sentiment or loyalty or even politics. I suppose that this places me on the far side of nowhere. For when all analyses, postures, and commentaries have been said and done, this elections contest is both challenge and test for the nation, and for each of us as individuals.
What does this nation stand for? What does it and all of us stand for with respect to standards and values and simple dignity? This is about me and you, and those indefinable and inestimable things that separate man from beast, and civilization from mindless savagery. Where are our minds? What can be said as to the character of each and every one of us, whether for or against this one or that one?
Look carefully; listen slowly and intently. Our leaders lie, deceive, exaggerate, and abuse without qualm, and at will; it is just another day at the office; and part of the paraphernalia of local politics at large. Leaders get away with all of this; they know so, too. The casual shrug that accompanies business as usual and the means towards ends. Any means for any perverse ends. Local leaders devastate psyche; tarnish reputation; and reduce to the currency of endless peerless mockeries; and last to futures of foreign beggaries. A port, a cave, any loophole in which ingenious and disingenuous Guyanese can rush to and find shelter and solace. Sometimes it is in the noble and majestic sanctuaries of the law and logic and peculiar lines of rationalizations, too. Most times, it is merely any remote eerie cemetery that will accept the dead that is Guyana, and of things Guyanese. And in this desolation of intellect and spirit, against this forbidding backdrop, there are these fanfares of an election, and mass self-mutilations of the uncaring and a country that has abandoned any pretense at pride; or possessing any vestige of it.
At the core, it is all about power. The power of men grown so powerful, that ultimately it is that same insatiable holding to power and quest for it that will be the instrument of their demise. There is another problem, a graver one this time: for in that screaming rush for the prize of power, there is the unstoppable menace that holds unsurpassed danger for all of the rest of us. It does not matter if one is (or isn’t) part of the unwitting, the unwary, the unconnected, the undecided, or the unknowns that constitute-voluntarily or otherwise-the multitudes of the great Guyanese ‘mobocracy’ that now roam unchecked and insatiable. There is a lust for the plasma and sinew of the liver. The ignorant and unlettered know not differently. Thus, the sweep and force of elections passions and events unleashed march inexorably to a fateful climax. Standing down, standing still, standing separately are not options, not considerations. Power is the premium now gnawing away with cancerous intensity and speed at what is left in the choreography of contradictions in the character of leaders. My great regret is that in the sordid political history of this nation’s leaders, there may have been very little of precious character from the very beginning; and at any time at all.
For it is my conclusion that somewhere in the leadership character, there is an impression of power that is unsound to the core, and that is to the grievous detriment of the peoples of this country. By this yardstick all of us are measured and judged, whether supporters or not; and regardless of if we like and accept this or not. That is part of the cascading collateral afflictions that plague all Guyanese. There are no exemptions, no immunizations. For this is how the critical, scornful, and dismissive judgment of the fraternity of countries and contemporaries look upon us. It is a pathetic place in which to be consigned.
What has become of us? How can we live with ourselves? What can be worth this insult, such damnation? I think we should pray for our leaders. Pray, too, for our country. But, most of all, pray for ourselves. And even that may not be enough.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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