H@rd Truths By GHK Lall – Ashton Chase - An Outstanding Guyanese

H@rd Truths By GHK Lall – Ashton Chase – An Outstanding Guyanese

Jul 15, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

Kaieteur News – People like Ashton Chase were before my time; yet they became an inerasable part of my time. Ashton Chase was more than a PPP stalwart of incredible devotion; he was an outstanding Guyanese, an extraordinary presence in our political seasons.

GHK Lall

Ashton Chase was, indeed, a PPP man through and through, but he was most of all a man. Much has been said, and will be, about his legal prowess, more could be said about his contributions to labour law. But the most that could be said of men like Ashton Chase is how they doggedly stayed the course, believed in their calling, as such pertained to politics. I think now of how this man (and the women also) stuck to his group, his leader. For me, this is what sets him apart, this is what transcends his place in the pantheon of political struggle and the push towards a political oasis, when only the interminable, rocky wilderness was what enshrouded.

To have been with the levers of power in one’s hand, and then dumped into Guyana’s political landfill for almost three decades, and still remain loyal, is a testimony to the mettle of men like Mr. Chase. It would have been so easy, so rewarding, to respond to the siren call, the seduction of that invitation: come, come here, come and there is a place reserved. There is always a place reserved for those who walk away and crossover, those who close their minds, and open their mouths to be blessed with the gifts expected. Today, after not even the passage of three short years, there are those calculatedly jumping ship, and skipping town, at the first appearance of some type of personal consideration. The cookie crumbles too conveniently, too cravenly.

Because I do not allow politics (not even religion) to govern my life, there can be recognition of the departed Chase, and hailing him for his walk through the sunbaked, rain-soaked, and windswept highways, byways, and alleyways of Guyana. We have been blessed with some sturdy men and women. Some were/are PPP, some PNC. I suppose that makes me into a national heathen, an unforgivable heretic. I have got some news for my fellow Guyanese on both sides of the bottom of that gutter: it is a good place to be, either damnation. For if and when there is scant regard for those with whom we disagree, then the only thing that matters to us is the sound of our own thunder, the reflection of our own Gorgon-like shadows. We turn ourselves into stone.

In the departed Chase, there is appreciation for a party man, a loyal man, a family man, a law man, and a man. I wish that the same could be said of some other leading men of today, regardless of their affiliation, notwithstanding their first allegiances. I have heard some malevolence hurled at the PNC’s Forbes Burnham -all bad, all wickedness. I disagree, for no man is all bad or all good. Along the same lines, the same has come to me that the PPP’s Bharrat Jagdeo is all vindictiveness, and all evil. And, just as I say about Burnham, I say about Jagdeo: no human being can be that capable of pure, unmitigated, stark, staring, raving madness. There is still some spurt, some splash of humanity’s goodness somewhere inside. There is what I believe to be the redeemable, though sometimes it has to be searched for, often futilely.

I look at my fellow Guyanese, young and old, those with the deepest of roots here, some with the mind of a visitor, and so many concerns rise to the surface. It would be encouraging to wrap my arms around their level of integrity. It would help to encounter Guyanese who have a pathological conflict with wrongdoing. There would be gratitude to note those who possess some backbone, some fortitude, to stand for something, other than what is about kowtowing, selling of self for the easiest, quickest trek through life. I am sure that Ashton Chase had to have had his difficulties dealing with Cheddi Jagan during the long, dismal years in no man’s land, as brick wall after brick wall rose to block their way. It is a tribute that he remained unwavering to the end. It had to have been a joy to witness his biological children following in his footsteps, and being remembered and recognized by his other political children, later contemporaries.

Ashton Chase was of that rare breed, like the real life English naval hero, Horatio Nelson, and that Roman of legend, Horatius. They both stayed on the bridge and held the line, and for that the cheers of their peers will always be present in stirring, rapturous ripples, the echoes blending effortlessly into one another. We still have a few more grizzled Guyanese like Ashton Chase left in this the first quarter of the 21st century. But daily they dwindle, as they head off to that reckoning somewhere over the rainbow. It was a noble journey, tread softly patriot, and citizen of the first caliber.

(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.)