George Floyd protests should make all Guyanese pay attention

Jun 01, 2020 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,

As the George Floyd protests rage escalate across the United States, I hope that all Guyanese are paying close attention that we consider ourselves forewarned, that we be sensible. For what we have here, is not police brutality, but brutality of the ballot box. It is the constitutional knee on our necks, with the plaintive pleas about being unable to breathe following. I warn again that fires are raging, and we would do well to listen.
No matter how extreme I am, and I can be so sometimes, I am not an alarmist. I am a realist: hardnosed, clear-eyed, and bare-knuckled. I will call things today in this unsparing, definitely ruffling, likely scorching, manner. Should any be inexplicably and irrationally offended, I extend a handshake; it is of the usual variety with fingers in a connected whole.
The brutality of the ballot box has plagued us and wounded us and drained us as a nation; our best prospects are no longer here, the dregs fight and claw. The customary crookedness from decades ago has returned with a vengeance in this most crooked of national elections. I have said repeatedly, it is not of who cheated, but who cheated more, who is more skilled at concealing the trail of acute wrongdoing, engaging in the continuum of nationwide electoral brutalities. The opposition PPP claims that the Coalition under the PNC armada of groups cheated blatantly; for its part, the PNC now contends that it is the PPP, which cheated more. Who to believe? Whose word could stand here, when most have been of endless vagabondage when in office or in their personal lives?
His Excellency, the Ambassador from the EU, has spoken glowingly of an ‘impressive’ process on March 2. I applaud him for his trust. But with both warring groups, and their supporting casts, contending that they have been ‘massively’ robbed, I submit that impressiveness does not equate to immaculateness. Immaculacy of elections day process, yes; but, immaculacy of input, I say a loud resounding no. I say this because what we did have is a criminal enterprise run by political henchmen, long accustomed to pulling the wool over the eyes of the gullible and walking away with the plunder of a tainted process.
The PNC has had a long history of such egregious misconduct. The PPP protestations to the contrary, has proven to possess remarkable imitative powers in the field of elections skullduggeries. Its leaders and agents have studied and applied, and the results are what bring to this clashing pass. From these now serialized brutalities come that unique Americanism of garbage in, garbage out. And over this, we rage with the fires that burn harshly within the hearts of both camps of contenders.
It is because of this, I asked very seriously at the beginning of this writing whether we have found the time from our elections obsessions to appreciate the depths of feeling, of injury, of agonies of the George Floyd protestors, who take to the streets when atrocities keep repeating themselves without respite, without resolution. I say this, once again, whichever side loses come June 13 (or December 13), the desired social tranquility will not follow. One more time: The anticipated communal and national peace will not be forthcoming.
I submit this on the firmest of grounds: That losing group, whichever it is, will have conditioned itself and people, and readied both, through the indoctrination that they have been deceived and defrauded and disenfranchised. It is that their votes do not matter, their lives and the quality of existence yearned for from the oil do not count. I do not think that there will much need for too much inciting, as the bitter antagonistic seeds have had the longest of sowing seasons. There will be no conceding by anyone.
Here we do not have layers upon layers of localised and overall national protections, a la the United States with its city and state police, its National Guard, and its near infinite reserves at the Pentagon. Neither manpower nor resources are present here, which means great vulnerabilities and great perils.
Accurate or not, and right or wrong, there are the formidable beliefs that when this is over and the foreigners go home, that we will all do the same; that we will do so quietly and orderly with our disappointment and failure. I would hate to think that there are so many of my compatriots, who are dumber than me or that they believe that notions of democracy will stem the tide. Look at America at this moment, where democracy is eons ahead of Guyana.
Let me say this now and in the most unambiguous manner: The PNC cheated post-elections in its studied attempts at one machination after another. I say this also: When I sift through and analyse all the shrouded mysteries of the pre-elections period, it is crystal clear that the PPP engaged in wholesale and clever preparations that set the stage for the manipulations and massive cheating that is now claimed by the PNC. Like the man from Europe said an ‘impressive’ day it was on March 2. The PPP, like the proverbial student of time immemorial, became better than the original teacher; 28 years in the wilderness is a long time of political apprenticeship. Part of the problem is that there are no takers from the opposite side that the other did not cheat and heavily.
This is what we Guyanese are faced with, with our own ‘rednecks’ and cartels pushing for preselected outcomes. I had warned years ago about the latter, too, in one of my tomes. As should be obvious, I have gone past cheating. My interest is on how this nation will go on breathing. Because if and when we do not get clean oxygen to sanitise our elections brutalities, then the rest will follow. America today stands as our counsel and caution. It stands as our promise and our plight.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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