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Speaking against our own 

Apr 27, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

I am reading of what intensifies in a faraway place, without a sound of protest in this country, and ask myself why this is so.  It is what is happening, not for the first time in India, in Mother India, as thoughtful and sincere Guyanese embrace it to be, and for a host of reasons.  They are not alone in their studied silence, their subtle separation, since there are so many other areas in this country that reflect our selfishness, insincerities, and possibly core untruths.

I read of Muslims in India made to feel as undesirables, degraded to pariah status, but the good Guyanese who speak so much good about many other good things are curiously quiet.  Yes, they (and we) know about the discriminatory and oppression and subjection, but it is never a one-way street, not ever consigned to one group or one place, which is an embedded ingredient of our constant chronic sicknesses.  For sure, in India, there are Muslims of high rank and highly favored.  Just like in Guyana, where there are those from different castes and colors who are part of the rainbow of public political persuasion.  It would do us well to remember that rainbows make radiant guest appearances then they are gone, matter for little in the bigger predominant picture. It pains me to add something else, but I must: rainbows, no matter how brightly contoured and colored, are usually within a context that is grey with the cloudy, sometimes even the stormy, present now or promised later.  I think that my Guyanese brethren should get my drift, though they may pretend at bafflement.

Thus, when we are bright about the positives in India and what is godly and the rest, we do well before man and the divine not to ignore the negatives, distance from them.  Using the same standards, I tell my fellows in this society, we must register our conscience and positions when called for against visions, programs, and people that divide us and wound us.  PPP followers who are genuine thinkers and truth-seekers must speak out against the corruptions that saturate this government and its leaders, some of which involve money, some others about morals, all of principles, or lack of them.  Someone told me the other day that ‘yuh can stap dah’ (corruption).  I damn the mere expression, the very thought, but will concede that a start must be made, with only limited progress expected to be made.

Third, I call upon PNC loyalists to take a stand against the unacceptable, what does not add up, what devastates not only the soundness of this society, but one’s own standing.  This has nothing to do with politics, but one’s understanding of oneself, and our roles in contributing to a better Guyana. I believe that there is a role and a place and a contribution for everyone, and it must be made, be ready to be given.  Fourth, to believers, including coreligionists, we must not fear to call things as they are, be they in the places of worship, before leaders, and let the chips fall.  They can crumble, or bounce back higher in a more empowering form.  Fifth, to the bigots and merely prejudiced, I say the acids and poisons are self-destructive; they eat away like silent stealthy maggots, or powerful predators at what could strengthen us, help us to remain somewhat anchored on an even keel.

Editor, in a nutshell this is my point, my thrust, my objective: we can go on as we are and go nowhere, since we represent nothing of profoundness, but the shallowness of old, stale air.  Or, we can be about something, no matter how small in the scheme of things, and stand for something that is about balance, what is broadly beneficial, and what makes better people of all of us.  Perhaps, I would assert, even a better society.

Sincerely,

GHK Lall

 

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