GHK Lall on lunacy

Jul 19, 2023 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Sitting with my cup of tea this morning reading the Kaieteur News (July 17, 2023), GHK Lall’s article entitled “Guyana’s lunatic center, local lunatic universe,” caught my attention. Reading through the article a few times, I couldn’t help feeling a pang of sorrow for Lall. His venomous attacks on Guyana’s political parties, leaders, supporters, and the country in general beg the overall question: Why is GHK Lall still residing in Guyana, among all the lunatics he identified and derided?

Pondering my own question while rereading Lall’s column, my mind drifted to Clifford Beers’ (1908) autobiography, “A Mind That Found Itself,” the story of a man who chronicled his life and times in asylums, and I wondered in my silence whether Lall’s autobiography would be, “A Mind that Lost Itself.” And I felt some sadness, sadness for a man engrossed in resentment. Why? Let me elaborate.

At the outset, Lall used his column to ask three questions as to ‘who are the biggest thieves, liars, deceivers and con actors in Guyana,’ to which he proceeded to answer by stating, “Always the answer is the same: PPP comrades and cronies.” Because Lall provided his answer with such certainty, one wonders whether he actively participated with the band of thieves, liars and deceivers which enabled him to answer his own questions without equivocation. And because he provided no documented evidence to substantiate his answer, the question about his surety of ‘thieves, liars and deceivers’ lingered, only to evolve with this ‘probe of conscience’ that queries “whether it takes a thief to know a thief, a liar to know a liar, and a deceiver to know a deceiver.”

After my thoughts drifted from all of the above, my attention centered on the rest of Lall’s article in general, and particularly his use of the word “lunatic” and “lunacy” which he used seventeen times, and if one includes the two times he used it in the title of his article, then the total become nineteen.

Why would anyone use the word lunacy and lunatic so many times to describe nearly everyone in society? This led me to the Foucauldian reasoning, ‘Is the man who calls all others mad is himself the real madman?’ I would not assume that every newspaper reader knows about Michel Foucault so here is a quick peek. French psychologist and philosopher Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984) was a renowned academician and political activist who wrote several books that cut across several disciplines, psychiatry, medicine, and the prison system. He is popularly known for his book entitled “Madness and Civilization,” in which he explored modern psychology and ideas of madness and mental illness. This brings me back to GHK Lall’s article.

In the article, Lall presents himself as if he is the only sane individual in Guyanese society. As this thought of being ‘the only sane individual’ travelled through my mind, it dawned on me that Lall would be an excellent client to a Jungian therapist, someone who capable of exploring his psyche to assess the interactions of the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious, along with the detachment of the Self from society, to understand the underlying disconnects. With this said, let me be emphatic that I am not passing judgement on Lall, I am simply basing my remarks on the article – assessment -he penned. I strongly recommend that the reader examine his article in Kaieteur News.

In the article, Lall not only called people liars, deceivers, con artists, he also used such derogatory terms as “patented madness,” “paranoiac,” “confirmed banditries,’ “fanatics,” “land piracies,” “thievery,” “crookedness,” all in his attempt to discredit various groups of people – supporters of the PPP and PNC. In one instance he hurled insult at the entire population for he said, “If this is not lunacy, then all Guyanese need psychotherapy.” Here is a newspaper columnist making judgements on the mental state of the entire nation. In fact, a line in his column makes one wonder whether he is discrediting his own newspaper and media affiliations along with others when he said, “Need a distorter of facts and circumstances, go no further than the newspaper, broader media.”  A sad statement indeed coming from a man who writes for a newspaper with the largest circulation in the country.

Finally, it seems as if the country itself was not spared. Lall described Guyana as an “upside-down country,” in addition to asking that if anyone, “Need acquaintance with the fanatics in the teeming cesspool that is Guyana, then journey into the battlegrounds of cyberspace… In Guyana, lunacy is considered to be close to godliness”… Here we see Guyana described as a “cesspool,” a place where “lunacy is considered close to godliness.” How much more insulting can a sane mind be?

The foregoing, my dear readers, leads me back to the Foucauldian question as to who is the lunatic? To this question, I am almost sure my self-made late philosopher fisherman friend from Mon Repos would have said to me, “any sane person would apologize to the country and the people.” If you knew Ram, you would agree.

Regards,

Narayan Persaud, PhD

Professor Emeritus

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• Emeritus, GHK Lall, Narayan Persaud, PhD, Professor

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