Ponzi scheme repayment and ERC’s national conversation

Nov 22, 2020 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

>>>Encouraging Events, Disturbing Developments<<<

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – I am encouraged that the Ponzi duo has promised to repay investors. Yet the things they do speak otherwise, disturb heavily. Their promises have stoked hope for Christmas repayment and cheer. Given my conclusions, the bilked would be lucky if they get anything, not by Christmas time, but anytime.
There are too many delays, too many games played, too much fooling around that breeds severe distrust. Then, I learnt of conversations with heads of agencies, which alerts that some form of sparring is underway: to buy time, to negotiate, to be helped with yawning gaps. That is, bargaining for a repayment scheme of less than dollar for dollar. Since they are short, I believe that, that is where things are going to be for 17,000 Guyanese. And, to encircle this sorry crooked crowd, it is disturbing to read that businesspeople and religious leaders were part of the scam. From the former I expect the worse; on the latter I should have, since there is little that separates the two.
I am encouraged to read that the ERC plans for a national conversation on race. I am disturbed that it is starting out on the wrong foot. I am encouraged because we need the conversation, to lay things on the table: our hurts, our suspicions, our anxieties, our settled fears and conclusions. That kind of expression and ventilation is needed for there to be any hope of moving towards some form healing and reconciliation. I urge careful note of those two constructions: “any hope of moving” and “some form of healing and reconciliation.” For any movement, at the beginning will be paltry because of how we are so deeply conditioned internally and externally. Hypocritical to the extreme on race matters, and incentivized to flourish from those that wound and lay waste at individual, community, and national levels. Any stirring (movement) will be faint; may futility fail.
On “some form of healing and reconciliation,” I envision the longest, hardest, most frustrating journey. It is one that calls for grit and the gifts to be really immersed in what could offer us pathways out of the racial muck. On the imperative of “gifts,” I collide with disturbing headwinds. The leading men at the table are the worst that we can possibly have for such a vast enterprise. Specifically, the two leaders, the Hon. Irfaan Ali and the Hon. Joseph Harmon are mockeries of what is needed to take us any place of substance in national conversations about anything related to race. Race relations. Race troubles. Race passions. Race visions. Race promise.
With regard, I see them as exemplars of dividers, of what is wrong for this country, of what magnifies the sordidness of our bitterness. To regard them differently, they must rise up and be men of vision and purpose, men of destiny, determined to lift to another place. Regrettably, I think they lack sincerity and resolve for this sacred duty of togetherness, to make us mend even a little. Undoubtedly, both will be about pleasing words, postures instilling hope, on what registers deceptively. At those they are practiced artistes, with the president being the better script reader. On that I ask, invite and dare him (humbly, of course) to prove that there is something consequential behind words and postures, through practices that are beyond the public flourish of national conversations.
If the Opposition Leader believes that he is spared, I jar him by articulating that he is less clever than assessed. Though less glib than His Excellency, he is no different in sinew nor spirit on the offensive racial ingredients so destructive to Guyanese. These are not the men to lead Guyana anywhere positive on anything and racial healing is at the head. Though encouraged by the promised event, and unavoidable, I am disturbed by their involvement. This society lacks capacity to absorb more dodges and dodgers.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)