H@rd Truths by GHK Lall – Bharrat Jagdeo – National Mystery, National Hero or National Disaster

Sep 05, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – There is this longstanding Guyanese mystery that reveals mania, hysteria, and paranoia.  It centers on a fine Guyanese by the name of Dr.  Bharrat Jagdeo. The national mystery is whether he is a national hero, or a national disaster, as a leader.

He first persuaded Janet Jagan that he is someone who has what it takes, a man of valor.  Then, his clever machinations extended and encircled the PPP power structure.  From there, the man of mystery has been on an approximate 25-year roll.  For half of Guyana, he is a hero; for the other half, villainous is the finest description heard.  I spare the prudish some of the more scorching descriptives hurled at or affixed to brother Barry’s whenever his name comes up.  To their credit, a number of his former believers have commenced a delayed, disgusted, determined march away from the man they did long believe was for them.  Dashed hopes; a warbler, not a deliverer.

It is why I employed those three words in the very first sentence above: mania, hysteria, paranoia.  I observe the picture of a man driven to sweating, foaming madness (by his own hand).  Study the man and there is the flooded canvas.  He has failed almost universally, so he flays away ferociously.  Few are impressed; fewer converted.  Some hero!  Yeah, sometimes, we all can be a little too smart for our own good.  Or, think that the commonfolk cannot see for themselves, make up their own minds.  I, myself, search for some type of truth in the man.  I am close to giving up as a now almost wholly lost cause.  National hero?  Or national disaster?

Brother Jagdeo’s long, swift descent from any prior authenticity began when he stared too long into the bright stream of life’s passages.  He first saw a big fish, the biggest one that he could have imagined.  The man was dazzled by himself.  The more he looked ecstatically, the more he fell in love with himself.  I feel sorry for him; offer a gift: don’t take self so seriously, do not seize for self the keys to knowledge; the keys to anything.  Try some humility, brother.  Sincerity helps.  Less political deviousness, truths assist.

A leader that has possibilities for the nationally heroic must possess dignity, caliber, self-respect.  No true hero of a leader surrounds himself with so many who would do very well prowling the streets at night, be they man or woman.  Think peddling flesh.  A leader with any level of honor cannot manifest the strains of fear and timidity observed when the issue that stands before him is the contract!  The oil contract!  The Exxon contract!  He committed.  He raged.  What now, bruddah?

What happened to that which defines a man?  Testicular fortitude, sir?  Only bullies snarl at women, which my brother J should know.  Just as surely, no national leader with a modicum of self-respect left would settle for those who prefer to be thoughtless, spineless, and stoneless?  Jawaharlal Nehru had his share of them, but almost 200 years later here; a new breed of Guyanese inhabitant of Gangetic heritage should have emerged.  Guyanese who are outraged at the Exxon contract, not because it is a PNC contract, but because it bloody well exists.  A Guyanese leader like Brother Jagdeo must have it him to stand before any foreign partner/exploiter and say to their faces: get this contract changed.  Get it changed now, or be prepared to get out of here.

Whither Jagdeo the national hero?  I pronounce him for what he has become: what we have in Bharrat Jagdeo the leader is a national disaster.  I advance: a human disaster.  Still another furlong: an outright natural disaster.  Go ahead! Sic the dogs.  I urinate on them.

When a national leader, the national leader, is reduced to circling around like a straw imprisoned by the powerful white winds that now prevail over Guyana, then the mantras of one Cheddi Jagan return with dirge-like poignancy: colonialism, imperialism, capitalism.  Today, the baying, slobbering antics of Brother Jagdeo provoke nausea, near puking.

Oh! He was going to do this and do that; but now can’t do squat, where the Exxon contract is concerned.  He is a strongman when dealing with locals asking simple questions, but a sawdust man when having to face the foreign interlopers.  Listen to Bharrat Jagdeo, and something is swiftly confirmed.  It is how much of a prevaricator he has become.  He circles and he sidesteps.  He waltzes and wheels around, while his breath whistles, as though a respiratory case. Whatever happened to the strongman and badman Jagdeo, when the vicious Exxon oil contract is the subject to be dissected and each slice discussed at length, and in depth?  He kicked it before; now it kicks him.  He swore to fix; now he curses citizens to conceal his dawning cowardice.  This is not a national leader or hero, bro.

Whatever bargain-election or commercial or other-that Dr. Jagdeo did commit to, he has travelled from a brawler to a crawler and a groveler.  Once more, I revisit the national mystery: Bharrat Jagdeo: national hero or national disaster?  All should know where I stand.  Truth never crawls.  Have fun, bruddah….

(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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• GHK Lall, H@rd Truths, National Disaster, National Hero, National Mystery

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