OP:ED – Divided we fall

Feb 28, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – I have to admit to being wrong about Venezuela. The thinking was that after years of severe hardship, Senor Nicholas Maduro and company would be glad to take the swiftest and fullest advantage of the partial opening of the door to a full return to some level of watchful (American) regard and stability.

The projection was that our neighbours would keep heads low, seal lips, and focus on boosting production and rebuilding in the quickest, most efficient, manner. Not to be, as Guyana is right up there among the burning priorities, and the enveloping passions just have to be made known; ambitions also with that prized Essequibo, and who knows what else not stated publicly. The march of oil does that to those who don’t look too kindly on our endowments and how we hustle forward with them, possibly draining what is concluded to belong to them.

Considering this, I doubt that there are many voices-contrarian, insistent, loud-in Venezuela pushing against what I assess to be an overwhelming tide. Guyana belongs to Venezuela; well, at least five-eights of it. There is neither division nor pushback over there, as originating in Caracas and spiraling throughout the country. We can’t say the same here. A dog passes by in Guyana, and one set of people declare it to be a devil, while the other embraces it as a donkey. More shouldn’t have to be said. Over there, the Venezuelans are speaking with one voice, and its screams against what the Yankees and Guyanese are doing over here – violating sacred national patrimony. Theirs, not ours. Guyanese had better come to their senses, especially rowdy, raucous, and rapscallion leaders.

It is because the Venezuelan position and vision are not what promise to ease up, go away, never to return. Not with oil and gold in such quantities; it doesn’t matter about disputed territory or otherwise. Unlike Guyana, Venezuelan passion, ambition, and position are not going anywhere. This is not about elections, and weak, corrupt, and dirty local politicians hustling to get near to power to help themselves to money. This is the strong and dedicated and clean-eyed in Venezuela never, ever, letting go of what is said to be theirs. The ICJ can deliberate, adjudicate, and pontificate all it wants, but the Venezuelan position is unchanging: Guyana is ours, all 53 square, as asserted for over a century. This is stone set in steel overlayed by strings of livewire suffused with 50,000 volts. In essence, that is Venezuela where Guyana is concerned.

Contrast that to the prevailing climate in Guyana: here we seek every opportunity to divide, then demean. This is not a country, it is an apology for a graveyard with leaders to match, a governance vision to match. We shatter and scatter our prize, our purpose, our possibilities. One small subset of one side feasts and gloats; the others exist in famine and fury. When this is our raw context, it is increasingly difficult to visualize how we can ever hold one head, one line, whenever an existential situation threatens. Beyond the lip service, the heartfelt conviction is not there. Not when one group swaggers with regal contempt; not when another struggles with being condemned to the role of losers, pariahs, undesirables. If the people in charge are kicking down, then insulting to boot when down, then it takes Superman to be there with them and stand up for them in a crunch. How can it be otherwise, when there is nothing to live for, nothing to fight for, nothing left, not even dignity, some minimal respect? They say that they are about oneness, but there are those subtracted from that one circle, and discarded. Get with me, or get lost.

I could be wrong in thinking in that way about patriotic pride; or that Guyanese honour has an on/off switch. But if the sense of belonging has been snatched away, and noses rubbed into the mud, then the messages are clear. There is no need for some in the demographic, which is what has taken hold. There are insiders and they are those who see themselves as outsiders, been condemned to that state. In the simplest terms, no dog in any fight, no money on any horse in any race. This is the place to which our ugly, dirty, politics has dumped. Leaders have relished doing their part, and none like the present crop.

I close with a piece of local culture. We have a matter with our neighbours being weighed in Europe. As experienced here, some who have lost in local courts have resorted to incinerating the source of the contention. Matters decided unilaterally. Meanwhile, grief rages in those sifting through the ashes. The point is that unless we are what is truly national, what is powerfully binding (not gimmicks and artifices), then we only make damn fools of ourselves, and more vulnerable to the adventures of the covetous. The Ambassador can take it from here to there. Maybe that contract is worth its premiums.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• GHK Lall, Guyana, projection, Senor Nicholas Maduro, Venezuela

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