Daring to tamper with sawdust heroes

Sep 15, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

I used to be alarmed at some of His Excellency, President Ali’s verbal excesses, which he clearly relishes. Now I admit being concerned over his ongoing delusions that insist Guyanese must accept whatever he stuffs into their nostrils, no matter how offensive, nauseating. Something is going on in his head, and it is certain that he thinks he is getting away with cleverness and clumsiness. If there is one thing about which he is transparent, it is his lack of content, his retrenchment of the cogent, and his devotion to the virulent.

Bartica may be overlooked as the fears of a bluffer being probed. But what happened next to GAWU and most recently at Mocha indicates that the President likes to kick dust into the face of those who cross his path. I recall a post that captured the President in Buxton deteriorating to something to the effect of ‘he ain’t know who he playin’ with…’ This is our national leader folks. But what does that mean in its widest interpretations? Is he ready to get down and get even with critics and confronters who disagree with his platitudes? Like a regular street brawler?

I think the President sees himself as a throwback to those strongmen of a different era, like Suharto, Noriega, Amin, and others. Villainous and ominous, they all were, and as much as I try to shake this sense of a developing national Guyanese horror, I end up losing, since the President is not giving me any strong cards to stand in his defense.

It certainly doesn’t sit well, nor reconcile well with the President’s haphazard attempts at being dignified, or gracious, or a man of honour and self-respect. He fails on every score, almost every time. Crude and crass are preferred. As I have often said before, it is in the national interest that Guyana’s leader succeeds, but it can never be so, be kosher, when trampling over the weak, shouting down the inopportune, and plastering over foibles and farces become the norm. I could tell the President the real truth and the whole truth without fear of violating what I stand for, or any regard for his wrath or that of his goons. Many of his own people think poorly of him on the big issues of the day, labour with their own consciences at his handling of vital components of governance. They are PPP believers, and not naysayers, or rabble-rousers, or scaremongers. I urge listening, it starts with humbling oneself. Being sincere also helps.

Citizens are not stupid. They read, they hear, they see, and they know. They discern imbalance and injustice; they pickup on the slippery and the raggedy. Guyanese have had 60 plus years of learning, and they learned from the best about dirty tricks, leadership vulgarities, and governance crookedness and cover-ups. I alert the Head-of-State to this little truth. The more that he rails, the more he gives others pause, include his own. He overreacts, and many of his own think that this is all part of a show. I was already there from the inception because I can recognise the hollow and the hollering before the faithful can ever bring themselves to admit to truth and situations, as lived. In another time when frankness was the order of the day, the leaders that we have today would be called out for what they are, and to their faces. Nothing but storytellers of a certain kind, schemers with practised lines, and operators with records to prove.

I recommend that all leaders and their peoples pay attention, and appreciate, however reluctantly, how they come across, perhaps in who they really are before the Guyanese people. The whole world is either here on the ground running around, or circling from 35,000 feet elevations, while they drool over the promise of Guyana. The Francis Drakes come. They must be delighted at the partners in crime waiting in Guyana to pave their way, and help them to prosper. They are gratified to have political players as we have in Guyana. They know that the local powers will beat up and beat down their own people to share in the spoils of oil, and whatever else they could place their hands on. I had hoped that the President would prove a cut above. All he does is cut himself up.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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