I expected better from Haji Roshan Khan

May 06, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

We have a storm whipping into frenzies and we certainly didn’t need more fuel whipping up passions about either “mentally lazy” via follow-up words for the offender to be “marked.” Though I understand the fevered emotions flaring, I say that this is not helpful.

I expected better from Haji Roshan Khan, a man who showed himself to be fearless and willing to go against the grain during the rage-filled and hate-saturated elections of 2020, to call issues as they were and as he saw them. I think he did on Monday, but went a tad too far. Even though sagacious defenders may accurately posit that he took a page straight out of America’s BLM, I still say this most respectfully to Haji Khan (with emphasis on that honorific): I expected benevolence. And to be completely clear: I would have preferred more of “the merciful and the benevolent” in this time of sacrifice, despite his laboured efforts at contextualising. To his credit, Haji Khan tempered his thoughts, as expressed, in several spots, for which I commend him. I offer this from Haji Khan: “I stretch my hand in dignity and respect” (“APNU+AFC’s Walton-Desir, Roshan Khan quarrel that she must be “marked” for “mentally lazy people” remark” Demerara Waves May 4). This is what I expect from Haji Khan and for which I commend him. Those who know better, function at a different level must maintain that and always seek to perfect those ways.

In the simmering cauldron that is Guyana’s ugly social and racial relations, there are not enough of these kinds of words, this kind of thinking. Instead, there is lurking for any action that could be amplified and utilised for the worst of incitements. We keep stretching our necks to peer into the unthinkable and the incalculable. I think that one of these days, it is inevitable that we will lose our feet and overbalance flat on our sorry faces. It will be too late to be sorry then, to retreat then. It is why, therefore, I urge that we cease pushing the racial envelope; we desist from stoking passionate divisions. It would be much better if we were to use energy and expressions to forage for some pathway that presents us with opportunity and groundings from which, and on which, we can erect something. Something lasting and not these emotion-fueled events that wound us still more grievously, more enduringly. Instead of fusing shards, we create more.

We started with the MP, continue with the Haji. It has been fire upon fire and the iciness that freezes our hearts, prevents us from any thinking at all. Better to hear calming voices, counseling wisdoms that are about the unequivocal: we cannot and must not go down these roads. There must be peacemakers, there just have to be contrarians to lift up and this is regardless of the costs. If we love this land truly and all its peoples genuinely, then so must we be. Thus, I stand.

Yours truly,
GHK Lall

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