Gonsalves and Harmon, then Arthur

Jun 16, 2020 Editorial

What is in a name? Much as it turns out, either in support or contradiction, as was the case proven in three instances last week on positions concerning our now increasingly tense and dangerous looking elections. The sharp spat began over the more palpable and audible recount position of the coalition, and it soon extended from an on-the-ground Guyanese commander to a sitting prime minister from the Grenadines, to a former prime minister of Barbados. And in the center of all of this stands our own de facto head of state.

There is Mr. Harmon, a name that should conjure instincts toward what is comforting, as in the much-needed harmony so absent in this society. If only it were so, in this most furiously heaving land, for his words and postures have steadily pointed to the disagreeable, the things that lead to the divisive, the dissonances that are the opposite of his name. it is ironic that this son f Guyana is also graced with the name of Joseph. Many should remember him from the curriculum of old: a brother betrayed, a son sold into slavery, a rescuer in a time of Pharaoh and hard hungers, still harder needs. He was there, he could have twisted the steel of recrimination against his own flesh and blood and condemned them to a devastating existence. But he didn’t, because he was about reconciling and healing, a heart filled with strains of the truly harmonizing. Oh! But if this one in Guyana were but so, too….

But, that takes a lot of man and a lot of doing in Guyana when elections are at stake, with recounts in motion and when conclusions are close. And it is of these that the incoming chairman of CARICOM, Mr. Gonsalves, spoke rather sharply to in salvoes that were of the gun, and which reversed the syllables in his name and made him live up to it. The piercing bulletlike tracers delivered by Mr. Gonsalves prompted a heavy counteroffensive from coalition leadership dodging and weaving for any cover from a spreading storm of regional scorn and the bluntest regional leadership warnings.

The words are not many, but they are loaded with meaning for the coalition leadership team, and none more than the commander in chief, Mr. David Granger. The pleas are couched in the stark and ominous: do not go there. do not challengethe whole world. There was the Arthurian: “Guyana can’t withstand the fire of the entire global community.” It is relevant, it is on the right track, it comes from the right instincts. This is more than about the coalition and its electoral prospects. It is about where it is gearing up to turn its back and determined to take on the whole world in defiance of the guiding facts on the ground, the now all but fully confirmed reality.

The fire of the entire global community is not to be taken lightly, not to be played clever games with as is done here, through toying with words, going back on public leadership positions committed to, and holding adversaries and a whole country at bay. This is wrong; and though it has been said a thousand times before, it is worth saying again. We say it a little differently today: President Granger, do not shepherd us down this road. It is hot, like the man from Barbados warned, with an all-consuming Greek fire that clears all in its path.

Be a responsible shepherd, be the embodiment of that first name blessed with at birth. Give this country and all its peoples a chance to be reborn and to live. We urge the Guyanese Arthur to listen and to weigh what the foreign Arthur is saying to him in the direst language, as to potential consequences that are almost sure to follow, should the wrong course be embraced.

We at this paper say to David Arthur Granger do not call down this fire of angered and assembled nations upon us, the people held hostage in this tortured land. This is more than about winning elections (by any means necessary). This is way beyond the issues of anyone’s legacy. Mr. President, this is about our destiny.