Leadership shortcoming everywhere: crime, COVID and cresting floods

Jun 27, 2021 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – One has to be the sturdiest of believers to take things at face value in Guyana. Some say crime is declining, and I wonder which country they inhabit; that this is being done and that, too, by the PPP government, which I find supportable up to a point, which is not high; and that the best is being done relative to flooding and COVID-19 responses, on which I again differ by degrees, many such. I look for the opportunities and leadership practices that could be encouraging, and I am still looking, mostly unsuccessfully.
Regarding crime, it is obvious that the Guyana Police Force (GPF) has its serious challenges. The finesses of politically correct language and times call for soft speech with the softest words selected, so I settle for ‘challenges.’ I think that the GPF has conflicts that signal a state approaching crisis. It needs all the help that can be extended, but be careful not to hold breath, as suffocation can come quickly. The internal politics of the GPF makes it limp, and the surrounding external politics-some from government, some opposition-lessens it still further. At this juncture, esprit decorps is at a low ebb, which directly impacts crime-fighting strategies and strengths, all of both, that could be marshaled and delivered. It disturbs that the longsuffering public is held to ransom, suffer more, because of leadership manipulations.
I think of flooding, and I detect entrenched unity in this country. Meaning only half of it. The other mutters discontentedly and merely focuses on keeping foot and forehead, and possessions dry. It is a bigger struggle to do the same with the mind. I hear no talk of the Dutch boy(s), who have successfully placed more fingers in leaky and rampaging overrunning dykes than all Guyanese leaders combined. But I do hear about billions and borrowing for flood, for anything that stirs the fancies of leaders. It is disturbing that they relish the excitements that come from billons, but lack the basics-integrity, decency, creativity- to understand fully how to get the most out of every dollar of those billions. On the COVID-19 pandemic, as in this catastrophic flooding, there is so much that could have been done with linking of arms, melding of minds, walking a different talk, across the harsh, unforgiving political environment. It disturbs that even with death knocking at our doors, we still find the time to undermine (an opposition behaving like a vagabond), and to divide (a government reminding of excrement). Like the vandals and barbarians of yore, the more there is desecration, the more there are these sickening leadership sepsis.
It encourages that we have oil and minerals aplenty, but it is disturbing that part of the accompanying downside has to be the abundance of the government and opposition leadership garbage that pollutes everything and everyone in sight. I am trying to be kind here; the realisation dawns that I am barely making it. Nothing seems to be able to separate leaders from the sewer in which they love to make their permanent home, while prancing and dancing. Braying and blustering, too.
Meanwhile, I couldn’t help noticing that, while crime creeps forward relentlessly, still more menacingly daily, domestic violence has resumed its frightening march, albeit witless numbing frequency presently, but spreading horror, nevertheless. Just to read from a distance brings cringing. And no matter how infrequently the moments of savage brutality, there can be no true understanding of the scars of those in the vicinity, particularly severely traumatised observers. They are the captive ones that go by the name of family survivors.
I reach for the encouraging, but taste falsity only. I know I fool myself. When a powerful dose of foolishness is hunted for, as a pastime, there are enough PPP and PNC leaders around to do the best job necessary in that foolishness department. Crime doesn’t move them. COVID-19 doesn’t move them. Cresting floods doesn’t move them. Crude oil and its crooked vulgarities are what move them to action. This disturbs incalculably.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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