H@rd Truths by GHK Lall – Sounds of Dementia, Schizophrenia, and Trauma – Moderates must Stand Up

Aug 25, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – There is a curious sound making the rounds in Guyana.  Lots of this same sound that I hear; then more of it in rising volumes.  It is the sound of dementia, schizophrenia, and trauma, as projected by senior political presences in this country and their widespread cohorts of celebrants at the trough of Guyana’s treasury.  It is what drowns out all other voices, their murmurs, and their offerings in public spaces.  Now, as each morning is broken, the pall of silence that saturates each Guyanese day must splinter, the sounds of silence, of voices once stifled and remains stilled; are what must be broken.

Not everybody in Guyana must live in fear of paranoid leaders, those who border more and more on the maniacal.  Not everyone in the domestic domain should cringe before the delusions and deceptions of leaders on a rampage against truth and justice and the brightness of clean light.  It is past the time for Guyanese to cower and coil themselves into a ball, and then collapse into cowardly retreat. It is high time that the few Guyanese voices of moderation, which have always been present to take back this country from the hands of dirty politicians and their still dirtier minds.  Guyanese must peel back their layers of self-protection, and standup for country and convictions; and may I add to that, if only to take a stand for the children.  It is how democracy works, a real one.  This is how its ideals, and its routines are held fast to, and honored, come whatever hells men make.

For myself, I stand in the open before any leader who has made railings as the cover for his (or her), rogueries, calling card, modus operandi, and way of governance, and call him a liar and a fraud and a con artist.  When such are the essences of what exists in the local environment, then I call out as the situation fits, and let the chips fall.  We have many here who measure up to those criminal characteristics, and then a few more at different elevations, who are in a class all by themselves.  In all situations, moderation rules, whether due or not.  When the thoughtful and tempered must reign, which is always, then the message of truths that do not flinch must come into their own, and take their place at the pinnacle of consideration.  This leader is a liar, that one is a loser, and makes liars and losers of Guyanese.

When an example is needed, then consider it done; and if this means that I am made into an example for others not to follow, then so be that also.  In whatever form.  By whoever’s hands.  On whoever’s orders.  For if the moderates and independents in this society cave into silence before menace, then extremists and fanatics takeover, which is exactly what has become deep-seated throughout Guyana.  Guyanese must make moves to take back their country, and recapture their destiny, from the death grasp of the lunatics driven to madness by the compelling incense of power.  Or they will be taken over mind, body, and soul without a finger raised in self-defense, without so much as a spirited word of objections.

We need some degree of moderation to counter the extreme levels of political leadership madness.  Guyana urgently needs the reawakening of its long dormant center, to stand against and stamp out this creeping leadership lechery that embodies so much that is vicious and vengeful here.  If the middle prefers to cave in on itself, and refuses to stir and grow now, then the two blocks of support on the peripheries would snuff out those who sit on their hands in silence, and wait for whatever a raging political leadership class dumps on their heads.

Silence is self-defeating, and silence in the face of countless leadership atrocities is death-dealing.  The death of dreams.  The departure of initiative.  The diminishing of character first, then courage soon after. Moderation makes us, or we allow madness to mangle and destroy us.  Guyanese must find it in themselves to stand up to the big barking bulldogs, and all the pet poodles that they have yapping about important they are, and how well they are doing for all.

I recall how Richard Nixon, a sitting US President used to feign madness to see how many Americans he could bowl over, and how many he could win over to his imitations of truth.  The man was a crook.  Does this remind of some here, one in particular?  Along came Don Trump, who would pass for a Mafia don, but ended up an American president, which for some is the same damn thing.  He, too, was and remains a confidence trickster that holds half of America in thrall with an encyclopedia of lies, flat-out misinformation, and outright disinformation.  We also have all of that right here in the decayed political leadership class.

The demanding reality is that men and women of goodwill, good faith, and good conscience must possess the freedom of mind and spirit to say this in the clearest, rawest terms: to hell with this.  And damn the repugnant forces that would destroy us from within from the peaks of power.  Then Guyana has a chance.

(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.)

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• dementia, GHK Lall, H@rd Truths, Schizophrenia, Trauma

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