H@rd Truths By GHK Lall – America, the beautiful and naked

Apr 09, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light…

If only we know! If only Guyanese had the wisdom to discern the terribly ugly harlotry behind the pretty smile.  Individualism.  Freedom.  Democracy.  Human rights.  And, of course, the Great American Way.  What a charade!  What a set of greedy, grasping, deceivers in missionary clothing my adopted brothers and sisters are!  The overwhelming majority of Guyanese don’t know this.  The few who know, don’t care because they are busy guzzling from the national trough to satisfy their gluttony.

I start with Spain’s Columbus and Cortez, America’s James Monroe later; those few names are enough.  They cast covetous eyes on some precious commodity that the poor, backward, dependent colored man (like me) have in their ground, their seas.  They come for it, take it.  Riches seized; aid extended.  We have black gold, many other treasures.  Already local tribes tear at each other’s guts to please interlopers, usurpers, conquerors.  History is full of them, and when Guyana’s truths are written, they will be our story, too.  We have our own Queen Isabella, with statues recommended to honor her place in the passage of Guyana from Jonestown to Johannesburg.  For a Viceroy, we have not a Mountbatten, but a Routledge brainwashing the naïve and gullible with his company’s contract atrocities. Mr. Routledge is one happy American, for he also has Guyanese jumping to his commands, with influential locals concealing his company’s chicaneries, others furnishing supporting spreadsheets to justify them.

Clearly, I did the Chinese an injustice; their objectives are on their sleeves.  Money first, money always.  None of these patented hypocrisies about free and fair, people’s rights, human dignity.  The puke-inducing, nauseating horror, of the cons and schemes of Washington and Texas rises in a rush.  The early Malcolm X had it right with his sweeping consignment to deviltry.  It is tempting to follow suit, but temperateness wins.

Look at us.  The PPP Government imitates Iran’s Shah: shoutout and shutdown conscientious objectors.  The Shah was an American creature, just like Chile’s Pinochet; look what both did to their people.  Guyana’s journey has just begun, with institutions failing, media suppressing, lawyers covering up, politicians terrorizing, and citizens cowering.  This is how the Guyanese patrimony is swallowed whole, consumed one barrel, one tanker, at a time.  Americans have left a trail of devastation wherever they went.  They always had their pimps, thugs, political hustlers and opportunists, who-no matter how well-educated or well-dressed or well-poised-were simply those at the core, and always ready to do their dirty work.

I ask myself which is worst: American covert operations, or American commercial ones.  The Pentagon has its wargames, the Exxon(s) of Texas have their money games; so-called strategic visions, dirty tricks.  President, Vice President, and Opposition Leader may harbor ideas that they form Guyana’s governance apparatus.  They fool themselves; are left with one option: get in line to please the folks in DC and Texas.  In substance, this is Guyana’s democracy, Guyana’s sovereignty.  The crab basket and rat race start at the top, with our elected ones working most diligently (knocking over, outhustling, outmaneuvering others) to come across as who is best for American interests.  This is what the imperatives of sovereignty amount to, what the essence of self-determination inspires to be.

The irony of it all, is that Guyanese who were the best students of political science, law, and life can’t even begin to bring themselves to be honest about this.  Rather, they seek to confuse, distract, and mislead about history, ethnology, democracy, and the usual herrings.  Man! Are we a despicable race of rogues and rascals!  My first epiphanies were from the books of thieves; Francis Drake and Sam Houston transformed into finely chiseled demigods for the consumption of lowly natives.  My last ones are to live with the new king and queen of Guyana, who were both identified earlier, are traitorously worshipped.

Separately, economics and statistics reveal the mysteries of GDP, growth, and at unimaginable rates.  I wonder if the diplomatic cables and corporate communications ever stoop to address the low single-digit population percentage that monopolizes 90+ percent of all those fantastical economic numbers.  The result is that the entire population (minus a few) is doomed to scramble for residual dregs and scraps.  Democracy may mean equality at the ballot box, but it never translates to equality at the cashbox.  Equality in sharing the money is not up for discussion.

We progressed from the myth and dream of El Dorado to this global gusher of an Oil Dorado.  All that it will translate into for Guyana’s pariahs and outcasts, the dismissed and despised, is debt burden, despair, resentment, animosity.  We can thank America for that, and suddenly, the Chinese look less diabolical.  No pretense.  No nonsense.  None of the heady incenses of human rights, democratic rights, and economic rights. America has used bigger countries than Guyana to mop floors, or doormats.  This is the real America; this is what is happening in today’s Guyana.

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

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• Chinese, Cortez, GHK Lall, Monroe, Viceroy

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