It is a naked, dirty, and sickly environment

Mar 08, 2022 Letters

---

Dear Editor,

I have no choice but to break momentarily my Lenten distancing from public space of Guyana, when the ugly and obscene occur. In this instance, it involves the Civil groups that came out in protest recently, and spoke out against known Governmental putridity in this society, that which starts from the top and cascades all the way down through governance ranks and places. Though I have come to respect the efforts of groups like TIGI and Article 13, today I focus on the Ursuline Sisters of Guyana, and this back and forth going on with their decision and action in the local environment.

It is a naked, dirty, and sickly environment. And when no less a person than the head of state takes it upon himself to take aim at selective protests, naysayers, and those who dare to stand up and speak out against the numerous egregious wrongdoings under his watch, the nakedness and dirtiness and sickliness of Guyana become more pronounced. The man objects too much, sees enemies where none exist. Further, when his people at the DPI, as reported, could find the time, use taxpayers’ money, and have the energy to work at manipulating and massaging what took place and involved the Ursuline Sisters, then it is a reflection of how sensitive and rigid this PPPC Government and its leaders are to constructive criticism, regardless of the source. It is an indication of how far leader and fawning followers are prepared to go to get their way and message across. Only their narratives, their sordid truths.

It is that this is a society that is unified and contented with leadership and governance practices. It is not, and far from it. It is that those who protest are traitors and selective. Who can be more selective than the President, when he forgets the decades of spirited and concentrated involvement that led to his group being where it is today? Perhaps, he has forgotten, due to his frail years, the endeavors of some of those same Sisters and their brothers back in the 1980s that led to the return from the wilderness and recall to where it is today. In fact, since the President nowadays insists upon manifesting the strains of selective amnesia, I remind him that one of their brothers, a priest no less, was murdered in that struggle; and I remind him that the whispers and fingers pointed are aimed at people known to him, and in his bosom.

Editor, in my seven years plus of volunteer contributions in the education field, I have come to know well these Sisters of a broader veiled sorority; they are the heights of dedication and truth, of care and compassion. This is even more impressive considering their less than perfect flesh, the state of man himself. And just in case the President and the other one pretend to forget, their own people sought futilely to take that same volunteerism of mine and taint it with the most spurious and vulgar of premediated intimidations. It was what reeked of the criminal by the hands of cherished criminals in their midst.

It would seem that in the drive toward authoritarianism and encircling totalitarianism (how I hate those two!), the President has now been assigned the role of bullying bad man to compel those standing in the way to cower in abject submission. I have questions for the President: how many does he think that he can menace with his messages? How many does he believe still fall for the deceits that will ultimately trace back to him, because he is the official boss where he should know what stops? How long will he harbour the illusion that he and his henchmen can overpower people, and overwhelm the environment with what does not add up, fails to make sense, and which make him look less than honourable, deplorably lacking in excellence?

I have some more: when an octogenarian has to set the record straight about what happened, and where matters truly stand, then how shabby and sullied the words and postures of the President become? I have known this woman, this Sister, for almost a decade, and she has never said a hard word about the politics and practices of anyone in that time to me. For sure, she is a free moral agent with the capacity to think straight and talk straight, for which I laud them all. I would laud the President when he sees fit to practice that kind of straight thinking and straight talk. I would support him when he works at not twisting himself into knots where truths and facts are concerned, like some Guyanese political Chubby Checker. I would commend him when he ceases playing at games with words in attempts to mangle the concerns and actions of those Guyanese who really care about this country, and go about doing so in the right way.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

---

---