H@rd Truths By GHK Lall – US Independence – Behind The Sweet Smiles

Jul 02, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

---

Kaieteur News – Sparkling pictures of the American Independence Spectacular held at the Marriott on Thursday, June 29^th are making the rounds.  The cameras and lighting were very favourable to all the dignitaries, with the regal host, Her Excellency, Sarah Ann Lynch gleaming with smiles and sweetness.  Part of that is the clock signaling the hour nearing when she would finally be able to wipe the dust off from her feet of this rambunctious society of rich, notorious, and troubled people.  I should do the same.

As said frequently, Ambassador Lynch personified excellence, with a capital E for American commercial and other interests during her tour of Guyana.  All human mountains were degraded.  Given the dynamics of physics, the wins she chalked up for America meant that something had to be subtracted (someone loses) to balance things.  The short, sharp, dirty stick was and is Guyana’s, to paraphrase President Ali.  What had all the ingredients for a win-win relationship between American interests and for fairness and justice to Guyana turned out to be a win-lose proposition.  Guyana is left with a barrel that makes a world of noise, which indicates its emptiness, shortness, and frailness.

US Independence celebration pictures flashed with smiling people; no frowns in sight, but one.  I laud Ambassador Lynch’s keen diplomatic skills, the jagged edges smoothed over so successfully locally.  Yet, I recall that Guyanese saying –‘aal skin teeth nah laff.’  It fits to a tee when the Guyana situation is considered from Guyanese eyes.  For sure, America is pleased with how the PPP Government has delivered its side of the 2020 elections bargain: no change to the contract, nothing that impedes Exxon’s constantly ringing cash registers.  President Ali has delivered by hiding and evading.  Vice President Jagdeo has become an expert at vacillating, tying himself into knots, immense distortions.  Opposition Leader Norton has sometimes smoothly, sometimes crudely, manifested elements of the top dogs in the Guyana Government.  No insult intended for men or beasts.

America is happy with all three pivotal Guyanese political leaders, which the sweet smiles confirm.  But the smiles only go so deep.  Despite Exxon’s incomparable prosperity from Guyana, Ambassador Lynch is aware of the subsea storms. Guyanese are unhappy with their government and their national leaders.  Guyanese are unhappy with Exxon’s rich take, Guyanese are mightily displeased with what their government, their leaders, their parliament, even their court, has been mangled into, and how their patrimony and existence have become a matter of exploitative, haughty scorn.  Guyanese are angrily aware that corruptions are worse than ever because of more money, more opportunity.  The sweet smiles stretch thin.  The pretenses of President and Vice President (Opposition, too) leave a bitter taste.  People think of change.  Change could mean uncertainty, if not instability.  Kentucky Fried Chicken (I use the unhealthy original) and Pizza Hut and Admiral Routledge’s glad handing and trumpeting (lovely speeches) only go so far. Now Secretary Blinken comes with his mandate: public handshakes, private diplomatic shakedowns, a little leadership shaking up.  Stand by Exxon.  Ease up on dirty tricks.  Stop tricking the people, leaving many out.  Remember: angry people are unstable people.

Meanwhile, Her Excellency Lynch was all smiles under the stars and bars.  But she is smart enough to know that her crowd of special invitees represent only the haves in Guyana.  It is the 750,000 plus outside of that charmed inner circle, that upper native crust, that matters, and of whom the great majority are the have nots: there are those citizens provocatively excluded in this season of more, and watch their own coerced or cajoled into comprising situations, as forced by political circumstances and leadership machinations.  Those are the Guyanese most distant from the Marriott bash.  They have been subjected to the most contemptuous considerations, reduced to the lowest denominator.  Ambassador Lynch spoke to this concern at last year’s American Independence Day shindig.  “Inclusion” was her word of choice.  Matters have deteriorated since then; passions grow more inflamed by the day.  Yes, there are those who have sold and been bought, but those are pyrrhic advances. Indeed, the few have helped themselves, as a matter of self-interest and survival, while the harms and hatreds intensify.  Hate is a frightening word, not used casually.  Guyanese hate what they have been reduced to, some in parliament are ashamed of themselves; countless others see things as they are.  They are agitated that things have not been as they should or could have been.

At the Marriott gala, the smiles were there, and so were the leadership guiles.  Both are cellophane thin, and transparently so. This too is obvious: Guyanese smile through their pain, and amidst the grimaces, they are most unhappy.  It is what makes America most uneasy.  This is what Excellency Lynch leaves behind as the real legacy of her diplomatic leadership and amid a super giant’s prospering oil lifts. Incidentally, thanks for the invitation, Excellency.  I hope that there is mature American understanding that some kinds of consorting just cannot be.  Bon voyage!

(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.)

---

• GHK Lall, H@rd Truths, Her Excellency, host, Sarah Ann Lynch

---