A quiet tableside chat with Excellency Ali

Aug 06, 2023 News

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Hard truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – His Excellency, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali (MIA) went into full celebration mode on the auspicious occasion of his incomparable three-year anniversary as President of Guyana.  I again cast aside other priorities and chat with Excellency Ali.  It is the highest priority for Guyana that His Excellency get things right.  He hasn’t, and an ocean of shabbiness, grimness, deceptiveness impales the nation’s consciousness.

Excellency Ali trumpets his three years by insisting that Black Guyanese will never be marginalized.  Pardon me, Dr. President, but public servants are starved a piece of their patrimony.  Most are Black.  Teachers are jostled, hassled, and muscled against a wall, when the issue is a fair deal for them.  Dr. President, I know that color blindness is not a weakness, but most teachers are Black.  What I have seen is the PPP Government galvanizing into action for marginalizing Black servants, through pressure, through pay.  They are not house servants to be pushed around, (and played around with), as in the old plantation days, Excellency.

Excellency, there are the folks at IDPADA-G.  They have been libeled, and then bridled.  No money is a muzzle.  No money Commander is marginalization.  No money is making IDPADA-G into a midget like existence.  Dr. President, in case there is too much dew on this bright Guyanese morning, those people are Black, and the people they serve and distribute State monies to are Black.  So, there, honorable head of state,  if this is the state of the head, then please spare me the ghastly sight of the rest of the national body.

Then, there is the Guyana Police Force, Dr. Ali.  As the designated bad guy, I holler about all those Black officers moved around, or moved out, and Indians moved in, and moved up.  A fine state of affairs this is, given the fabrication of ‘One Guyana.’  Apologies, pressy, but my thinking is that when what I have identified above exists, then ‘One Guyana’ is a sweet symphony, a cunning two-word code, for racial purity; for racial supremacy.  Count me out of that claptrap, please.

The hallmark, the vaunted trajectory, of an authentic presidency, small brother Ali, is an unerring and inseparable and nonnegotiable twinning with the fulsome nature of truth, fidelity to fairness, and embrace of the ethical.  Secrecy is the blood enemy of transparency, the sworn adversary of accountability.  And talking with the twisted white man’s tongue is the colonizer of the unity spoken of so majestically three Augusts ago at the National Cultural Center.

Transparency, accountability, and unity were what Guyana’s Ali promised on that hallowed new dawn three years ago.  No caliph has this Ali turned out to be.  Not with those three powerful words that he committed so fervently to make the essence of his presence.  Excellency, I speak candidly: when the postures and words are of some mystical transparency that has been, I feel foolish.  I feel fooled, Mr. President.  Guyanese can’t feel much differently about a President that savors such spuriousness. Now, in this tableside chat, Mr. President, please accommodate these few little questions.

Where is the leadership truth about righting the “wrong end of the stick” that is Guyana’s lot with Exxon’s contract?  What about some transparency with the gas-to-energy billions for Wales?  How about some accountability for crimes committed against the people, and with punishments to match.  I speak not just of Amerindian or Black people, but all Guyana’s people.  And try this last one, dear leader: instead of policies and practices (pay, placements, promotions, and plenty more) that spread disunity, how about some genuine unity that is palpable, found laudable?

Reality check:  How does that $200,000 bail figure ever contribute to the serenity of unity, sir?  When such rank inequities, the sharp jabs of ascendancy, reflect imbalances in the political, social, racial, and legal environment, Mister Ali, then how do we ever begin to speak of true unity, my brother?

If anybody else were to say what is said by President Ali about unity amid blatant marginalization, or transparent secrecy, I would dismiss as some cheap barroom comic.  Or someone that was kicked in the head by a horse, which then fell on him.  Because this is a public sharing, the courteous and kind are extended.  But, Dr. Ali, I am ashamed to share some of the derogations and denigrations heaped on the presidential head.  And that’s from the PPP flock.  Frankly again, Excellency Ali, I detect that there is too much comfort with reveling in the dark waters of exaggerations, the thin skin of omissions.  The blusters and bluffs of adolescence must be a matter of the past.  Or else there is only the pretense of adulthood, and then limited one, by any astute measurement.

When I hear of these presidential antics and histrionics surrounding so many features in Guyanese life (like never marginalizing Black Guyanese), I can’t believe that it is a leader over 40, since there is no behaving as though a day over 14.  Go back to the drawing board, Comrade Leader, Excellency Ali.  Please get it right this time.  Start on the right foot, continue along the right way, and then the right words will do justice to all Guyanese.  Only then, and only so, Dr. Ali.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of Kaieteur News

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• Apologies, Guyana, Guyana’s, No money is making IDPADA-G, One Guyana, President Ali, pressy

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