H@rd Truths by GHK Lall – The old time Chinese had it right

Oct 22, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – Some local and foreign people think that I abhor Americans, Chinese, Europeans, and Guyanese, among others.  Let’s get this right: I hate their actions, their work products, but only when those are crooked, and damaging to Guyanese interests, defeating of this country’s promise.  I promise here and today that there will never be any hate at them individually or collectively, but only at what they do.  As proof, look at what brother Jagdeo and his folks tried, and look at how they made me better.  It is their private enterprises that I loathe, on which there is the shortest of short fuses.  For all of them, which brings me to the Chinese.

The oldline Chinese were an extraordinary group.  I didn’t have much use for Mao Zedong, but the verbal flair of his righthand leftist champion Zhou en Lai was a source of amusement, the cogent, and the constant contributions about the predicament of poor coloured people all over the world.  Zhou was the one who left the world with the immortal “running dogs of capitalism.”  As someone who believes in honest work, fair play, and a fair deal, that didn’t sit too well, but the imagery resonated and lingered.  Who would believe that of all people, given where I have been and climbed a rung or two, that I am the one who takes unending offence at what goes on in this dear land of Guyana under the shield of capitalism.  It is more than crony capitalism and crooked capitalism; it is this rabies infested crime that fluences around under the negligee of capitalism.  Man, it is so transparent that it is naked (thanks, Dr. President).  At the risk of mixing and mangling metaphors, the running dogs of capitalism are alive and strong in Guyana 50 years after Zhou’s immortal crack now proven so accurate.

There is Exxon, there is Hess, and there are those new Chinese (CNOOC) at the head of the ravenous pack.  They are running, and what they discharge on Guyanese is a sight to behold, a sent to remember.  CNOOC is the Chinese of Xi Jinping and not Chairman Mao, or Vice Lord Zhou.  Indeed, the time are a changin’… All of this is so, but there was something else that this stoic and serene Chinese political sage called Zhou left us from more than a half century ago.  When Zhou (may he rest in celestial eternity) spoke of capitalism, he made frequent use of a word that had telling effect then, and has come to have the most sprawling application and impact in this country today.  The word that Zhou used was “barbarians” and I register at the heights on my scale nowadays: as a slur that has no equal, as a putdown from which there is no comeback, and as an insult that is as American as god, country, mother, and apple pie.

Oh yes! Zhou saw capitalism’s worst barbarians in Americans; I agree, when I think of my Yankee brethren offshore, onshore, and in the PPP Government (the PNC Opposition too).  From the East, the trumpet blast of “barbarians” traveled across the Pacific and landed on the European landmass, and enveloped the Nordic, the Celtics, the Gallic, the Teutonic and, of course, the Angles and the Saxons, who are all Vandals and Visigoths.  Man, do they put Guyana to the sword, and look at how they sack poor, vulnerable, defenseless Guyana.  With leaders of the thunderous prowess of Dr. Irfaan Ali, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, and Dr. Aubrey Norton, the “barbarians” run wild in Guyana.  I look at those brothers of mine, doctors of national anemia and national dissipation, and behold not family physicians, but general practitioners of a different calling: those who provide aid and comfort to the viruses that invade Guyana.  Zhou had the best name for them: “barbarians” which has proven to be so perfect in the circumstances of Guyana.

The barbarians plunder our riches, and get a grip on how President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo assist them with their sophisticated schemes that lead to the impoverishment of the spirit of Guyanese. The national leaders who loved to be called doctors, actually demand so, preside over a country reduced that they have reduced to a carcass, when they allow the barbarians to pick Guyana to the bone: British, Chinese, Americans, and others of that buzzard family.  When President Ali opens his mouth to pronounce on issues of national significance, the barbarians love him, applaud him; they have a medal for him.  It is because the barbarians have the freedom to excavate the riches in every cavity of Guyana, without incurring any cost for doing so.  Each time VP Jagdeo does the impossible, which is to outrun his shadowy arrangements, his patented farces, the barbarians ready their harpoons overrun another area of Guyana.

I encourage my fellow Guyanese to look at the Chinese of Xi Jinping.  His outlook and attitude are simple: whoever wants to tap into the vast Chinese potential and market come here on the terms dictated. The Red Chinese know what they have, how much they mean to Yanks and Brits and Eyeties.  Red means green, as is profit gold.  President Ali and VP Jagdeo should take a page: the oil is here, and this is what is what Guyana must get.

(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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• Chinese, CNOOC, Europeans, GHK Lall, H@rd Truths

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