H@RD TRUTHS BY GHK LALL – Happy holidays, brother Bharrat

Dec 23, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

Kaieteur News – Brother Barry had more than my sympathy. Bharrat Jagdeo has my handshake. Don’t know what he said. Don’t care. No disrespect intended for a former president. No hard feelings for a man in the throes of someone distinctively unhinged. He should be helping me. Instead, the roles are reversed, and the fraternal duty is to reach out and touch. The hope is for a better Bharrat. The dream is for a better Guyanese world for every citizen. Foreigners are included, including aliens, legal or illegal.

GHK Lall

The more Barry Jagdeo curses, the more a curtain of calm descends. Rail on, bro. There is a country that could use a little ray of light, a small speck of truth. Since this former head of state has clearly lost his head, then the duty falls to me. I try. He can continue with his tortured trademark tirades. We have fallen far and hard, haven’t we?

I mean what is the use of all those fine gentleman in government offices, or enjoying government sponsorship, when Bharrat Jagdeo has to get out his pickaxe and battleaxe, and wax uncontrollably, as though he is some inebriated brawler out to prove a point. What is the point, my brother? The more ranting that there is, the more there is the deep conviction that my efforts on behalf of the Guyanese people have some value, reach into high places, and possess some sting. If some dirty work has to be done, and all political hatchet jobs are dirty, then leave it to the analysts and pundits and government bandits. For the good doctor’s information, my people money came too hard, it was scarce, and so there is the duty to do justice to their memories and sacrifices. Mine is not the luxury to be squeamish. Or to be spiteful and wrathful.

Christmas or no Christmas, brother Jagdeo should come to this understanding. This work is not political. These words are not racial. These thoughts are not financial. They are national. But before those there is something even more special. It is spiritual. Now the honorable Vice President, the esteemed doctor, the majestic man of so many attributes, must know something: the people against whom he wages war are not his enemies. Indeed, they are against what is bad for the poor people of this country. But they are not his enemies. The real ones are from Texas, who send him into these fits of frenzy, and the paroxysm and deliriums of someone who realizes that he is being used, but cannot help himself. How do I not take pity a brother who has dug such a big, open, noticeable hole for himself? I am working overtime to not just warn him, but also to lift him out of it. His own people are not going to open his eyes, nor whisper in his ears. Their job is to pander to his whims and fancies. Mine is to point to them, and then say, brother, there is better, and it can be done.

Now, if that brings whips and chains, and whatever else, then let it be. I am thinking. All this attention given, this much time wasted, and for what? His people are looked upon as charlatans by his own. I take that back and substitute the lost. Or the lonely. Or losers. Mr. B: please don’t let this leadership, this wealth, come to this agitated state. I can manage with whatever is tossed in this direction. Clearly, my brother Bharrat Jagdeo is self-destructive. Don’t do this to self, bro. If there are five Guyanese who will whisper how things really are, how the pain of our fellow citizens, how the exploits condoned damage the national psyche, I am one. What is shared with country and Barry is not the product of people behind the scenes. It is a product of the soul. If pummeling has to come from that, then it just has to be.

How do we lift up the poor in Guyana? How do we give the empty of heart hope? How do we make those lovely statistics mean something in their lives? And their communities? And the many other communities across black, brown, and native Guyana? Should this be a source of rage (and clearly it is), then I regret that, and it is the savaging of Guyana continuing. The boys have tried everything, and I am better because of it. Find unknown parts of myself. One of the startling developments is brother J’s own people urging me to keep on doing what is done. The more Bharrat Jagdeo depletes himself, the more I intend to replete his wasted energies. This man needs help, and I am not one to kick someone when he is down. If it is my call to singlehandedly lift the quality of the conversation in this society, then the labours must follow. In closing, I make this point before all Guyana, the world, and particularly Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo. I do not need you. But YOU need people like me.

(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.)