We need to care about Truth and Reconciliation

Aug 16, 2020 Letters

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Dear Editor,

What I share today is sure to be considered untimely by many, even worthy of instant dismissal, but I will still ring the bell. I plan on ringing it loudly and constantly, if only to remind of what we direly need, what was touched upon slickly during the elections travails, and what is now distanced from, even abhorred, in the post elections ecstasies.

More than a few were talking about Truth and Reconciliation during elections quagmires. Where are they now? How about that now? I listen and there is stony silence; there is only a cooling chill of previous ardors on the score of Truth and Reconciliation. As I grope for the conciliatory, I discover the recriminatory. Political appointees (I agree), public housing (agree again). I depart from land leases from 2018; then someone mentioned the threat of yanking ‘illegally’ granted radio licences. Where does it stop? What chance healing and reconciliation? What probability engagement in the search for truth, any truth, inclusive of suspect or spurious ones (if there is such a thing)?

I sense more than a programme emerging with spiraling viciousness. I detect a political pogrom. And because this is bitterly polarized and supremely sensitive Guyana, this instantaneously translates (or is interpreted) as possessing the implacably and irreversibly racial. I sincerely hope that we are not going to carry on like this for the next several years. It is certain to backfire from built-up rages and resentments that fester with the retaliatory that, in time, finds outlets for flourishing; it will boil over. One former senior official in the previous government has signaled that he is not going anywhere. I think that he is going to get as much mileage and turbulence from this as could be extracted. It is called politics here.

As an aside, and all this gathers steam, I refer to SN’s editorial of Sunday, August 9, where it made a terse, fleeting reference to ‘phantom squads.’ I hope that such is found neither necessary nor significant (again), as the record of the denigrating and distressing accumulates. That, too, is part of our politics, though the convenient cover of “national security” was found to be as a shelter as any. I remind everyone that Guyanese partisans have long memories in this country, unforgiving ones.

If no other Guyanese desires to face reality, I do. There is sharp soaring fury on both sides, along with the all too human inclination to stick it to adversaries, to make the pay or grovel. I have a problem there. There are great waves of hatreds that inundate consciousness and environment; to think that these public humiliations will peter out unaddressed is the height of serious misconceptions. This is what has reduced us to where we are (prejudices and passions) and reminds all about the perils embedded in what I shall call the social and racial ordering and structuring. In this time of excitable frenzy of victory, there is near to zero interest in listening to, responding to, or doing anything to address the known fears and hostilities that exist. To put bluntly, there is neither time nor thought on anything related to truth and reconciliation, on mending and healing. All efforts (including mine) die stillbirth. I must persevere. I hope that there is a convergence of circumstances that aid Guyanese to overcome this existential impasse, the one that matters.

What we endured before and live with today is unhealthy and could prove to be seriously unsettling. I do not foresee, as much as I try, how this stagnated and suffocating state of affairs could continue unaddressed and unresolved indefinitely. The vitriol may be bottled up today, but the hatreds are going nowhere. It is a recipe for tragedy. I urge that there be some sensitivity for where stands are perched precariously, and that the appropriate overtures be initiated. I appreciate that there is no harder sell; it is one that collides with the hardest of hearts. That is a problem, a grave one. It should not be this way.

For if there is one thing that we should have learned from our elections’ traumas, it is that we are not One Nation, One People, One Destiny. Not by any convenience of the imagination. But Guyana is indisputably of two unforgiving polities trapped in one scorpion bottle. It is why I exhort, amidst the flurry of commitments towards Commissions of Inquiries on this and that (which I believe are needed in some limited situations), a Truth and Reconciliation Commission also should be high on the agenda. I did pen an earlier effort, which gained no media traction. And though I am beginning to feel like John the Baptist, I keep trying. I must check my head to ensure that it is still attached to the right place.

We need truth and reconciliation; we must work toward mending and healing… at some early time, in some shape and form. Does anybody care? I do.

Yours truly,

GHK Lall

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