H@RD TRUTHS BY GHK LALL – Speak wrong on oil and it is heresy

Jan 13, 2024 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

Kaieteur News – Speaking out can bring out the ‘ruff’ stuff. Oil. Just ask David Patterson, MP. Bad stuff happens to citizens who speak to truth, justice, and the Guyanese Way. Oil. This development involving Mr. Patterson needs some wrestling with, and I give it the old college try. It’s all about de oil.

GHK Lall

Patterson decided to take the bull by the horns on ring-fencing oil projects, only for him to get gored, and then trampled upon. By his own people. His heresy was speaking his mind first, speaking against the party line second, and speaking at all, third. In this country speaking out leads to bad situations. Look at the names that I have been called, the vituperation and vilification hurled in this direction. It tells me, and should tell David Patterson, something: we are on to something. Something that bothers the big people, and not only Guyanese people.

I urge fellow Guyanese to sift through what is being said here, with an eye on the last point (not only Guyanese people). This MP came out of the blocks with a furious sprint, and simply observe the rapid response that came about almost immediately to shut him down. Where did such alacrity and energy come from, such unfamiliar zeal and decisiveness? I go back again to a consistent position of mine: a citizen or two, and there are few more than those, dare to step out and speak out, and the mighty Barry Jagdeo dons his armor, draws his sword, and leads the charge. Of course, his dirty tricks squad take their cue from him, and know what they have to do, what lines they have to put out to snuff out conscientious comment, honest dissent. It is as if there is an invisible hand (not the Adam Smith one) that compels Jagdeo to say something hard, and to get his guys to do something ruff. Don’t waste time with the spelling, simply focus on the point. Certain narratives must not get out, must be stopped dead in their tracks, if not the narratives, then the narrators.

Who is pulling the leadership strings in the PPP? Ever study His Excellency, President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali when the issue is oil, and there is dissent? Who is not an ‘undesirable’, is a parasite. We all should know the kind of fate of ‘undesirables’ and parasites. Go back in history, and check out the leaders in the old USSR and Germany who used those words to describe people who pointed out the gaps, the truths, and the ugliness. And the nakedness of leaders.

Now, up comes David Patterson, all huffing and puffing about the need for ring-fencing, and there is the Leader of the Opposition in full battle regalia. Get ye lost, heretic! I am sifting through my mind, as clogged as it is these days, to recall the last time that Brother Aubrey acted with this speed, which is like a bolt out of the blue. If anyone wants to make a connection with the Blue Mountains of Jamaica and that world class runner, be my guest. For to speak against oil in this country is to be a political heretic. These used to burn religious heretics, in Guyana they (the PPP Government) demonize and criminalize oil heretics. Look at Bharrat Jagdeo, who cannot stand a syllable of criticism on oil. Now do a comparison with Aubrey Norton in this Patterson matter, and the parallels are unbelievably, eerie.

Ask these two remarkable political brothers about oil, and they transform into Hamlet. It is one soliloquy after another, with sprawling indecision hobbling any thinking, any moving, any doing of anything that holds some likelihood of a better return for Guyanese. Why? A second time, for what purpose? And, for ironclad emphasis, a third time, why any such leadership sacrifice?

Why the circumspection on this massive, and now self-enslaving, oil patrimony? Why the timidity, the hesitancy, the truancy with this gift of God (or nature, or some doomed Ice Age)? I appreciate as much as the next man, if not better, one for all, and all for one. But this is the destiny and prosperity of a nation, not some foreigner. Not some rich white folks pushing relentlessly to get richer on the backs of poor Guyanese. I dare the dark forces in this country: go ahead, call me racist. I have been labeled and branded so many things, and so many times, that racist is next, and whatever else.

Put the two leaders side by side. Bharrat Jagdeo does not have Aubrey Norton’s problem. His people are muzzled, chained, handcuffed, straightjacketed, blindfolded, and all dumbed down. Oil – not one damn word out of place, or there will be hell to pay. Sexual predation is overlooked; stealing is normal. But oil is sacred. Not a hair out of order. Mr. Norton has no such luxury, and he struggles to put Pandora’s perversities back in her box. Too late, skipper. Why shut down Patterson? What is there to merit shutting down and kicking out?

If any Guyanese still has any doubts about what this black gold has done to us, then look no farther than brothers Ali, Jagdeo, and Norton. Somewhere behind the curtain is a man called Alistair. He doesn’t have to say a word, or pass any orders. The natives know what they have to do to please, to continue, to last. When I talk about the new slavery, Guyanese who should know better scoff through their lying, deceitful teeth. Somebody take me up now!

(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.)