Which country could go forward like this?

Mar 06, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

Every sharp succeeding hour, every new searing development, on Thursday brought the anxious suspicious peoples of this paralyzed nation to a darker, more sinister place. As I looked on and listened, I could not help thinking that we were already in a terrible place, which now might be one from which we cannot recover at any time. We cannot extricate ourselves as one people and proceed forward with one purpose. That much is crafted out of steel. Neither inclination is there; if it were by some miracle on Wednesday, it had totally evaporated by Thursday afternoon.
We were already at the point of exhaustion from the tactics and antics; they are born of strategies which have propelled us to the edge of self-destruction. So far, the exchanges and interfaces have been limited to heated words and spiraling temperatures. But such is the climate and terrain from which either certain dangerous interpretations of postures and messages are made, or matters taken in hand (or out of hand) deliberately for redirection towards nefarious ends. We exist from moment to moment with the delicacy and vulnerability of life knowingly balanced on a hair-trigger’s edge. It is during such times that mistakes are made. Lethal mistakes. Mistakes from which respite and return are neither likely nor possible.
Surely, this cannot be what we want. Surely, not what we want for ourselves, for this society, for our future. I regret that I find it necessary and timely to introduce the mundane at this point: What does the oil wealth mean now? What could it mean when we are digging out each other’s eyes and tearing out what is left of our credibility and our soul?
I wanted a result yesterday just like everybody else. But I want a result that stands up before any scrutiny, any criticism, any and all comers from anywhere. Well, we have a result that is sure to find delirious acceptance by approximately half of this country. But as the miracle of a result reverberates across Guyana, the other half of it grits its teeth, lashes its head against any steel or concrete pillar it can find, and screams into the winds. The cries are: no! It is wrong. No! It is fraudulent. No! It is unacceptable and damned from now to kingdom come.
The coalition may have won, according to some unprecedented brilliance at GECOM. But at what price? What price when a whole country loses, when credibility and trust and partnership are all in tatters. Nobody, no group, could think itself a winner in such circumstances. To where now, but the tribunals of the courts, the justice of the unpeaceful streets. Try as I may, and I do so mightily, I am at a loss as to how any form of constructive or significant governance could gain root, emerge into even half a flower, and shed some brightness and some fragrance upon the funereal atmosphere that casts the pall of a thick impenetrable blanket across the length and breadth of Guyana and over every Guyanese. We have entered the unreturnable territory of the impossible.
I do not think that we can progress much with what is now before us: not in a straight line, not in any positive direction, not with any semblance of strength. I regret this immensely. I believe that the unfolding events of Thursday, now settled, have set us back, way deeper, past the lowest point to which we have ever fallen before. This is not even a pyrrhic victory, but one of countless and incalculable injury. It is too late to reverse course now. It is simply too late in the day for anything. Period.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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