I feel tarnished

Sep 22, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

I noted the media shots of Guyana’s leader, H.E. President Ali laying a commemorative wreath in commemoration on the occasion of the 9/11 memorial on Greenwich Street in Lower New York City. I feel tarnished by his presence at what for me is consecrated ground. I was there.
I remember like yesterday, 20 years later, hustling down many flights of stairs, rushing away from the scene during the collapse. I still have a dilapidated briefcase with some stubborn grey stuff ingrained in the now faded black leather; it is a treasured possession. As I reflect on this, I am convinced that some power has special work for me to do. And as I look at the photograph of Guyana’s President Ali, I return to where I started, what lingers: I feel profaned.
I understand that it is a largely ceremonial moment, required of national leaders, but when I think of the one from here, I see only a figure representative of the debris and smoke that rained down on me and other survivors on that evil day. I behold a shell of a leader, a man who is so much of hollow words, that he could form a whole hollow block industry by himself, and be very successful at it. I say to Guyana’s President Ali what Jamaica’s sprinter, Usain Bolt, recently advised someone: “if you talk the big talk, you have to back it up.” I couldn’t say it better, for President Ali has not been about anything other than being content playing at Santa Claus; one giving out beads and trinkets, while ensuring that those running the government store prosper a hundred times over.
Editor, take away his words, and there is the emptiness of a suit puffed up, and lacking any substance; there is nothing. He is among the best of script readers, an improving stage performer, a shadow of a leader. He nimbly dances around delivering dole, and feels good about himself, a walking Red Cross, a one-man Salvation Army. I would recommend that one of his army of advisors tell him to know when to say nothing, which should be most of the time. Even the Grand Duke of Guyana’s fabulous oil duchy is slick enough to know when silence and smallness and distance are the hallmarks of wisdom. He knows when not to say anything, and beat a hasty retreat, especially when cornered over ethical handling of the nation’s oil wealth.
But I detect in President Ali one more Guyanese, who has fallen so much in love with himself, that he cannot help preening, and opening his mouth and embarrassing all of Guyana, with the sepulchral rot that comes from within him. He is a master numbers dealer, at home with the bluff of billions, while concealing from citizens the massive corruptions embedded in them for his own. I remind him of moral and ethical leadership mandates. He knows how he measures up: invisible, in trouble, uninspiring. I am polluted.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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