A fiery silhouette, a burning memory

Mar 06, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

H@rd Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – The flame-drenched outline of US airman Aaron Bushnell brought back some pictures from the memory vault. It was of Buddhists monks who set themselves on fire in the streets of Saigon, turning themselves into human pyres. The ultimate sacrifice made in the name of a cause. Americans were very much present in Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s, and that same American element is also present in the plight of the Palestinians trapped in Gaza. In Vietnam, America was in the thick of things, with its war machine roaring. In Gaza, America is behind the scenes, but no less damaging, as its proxy war machine rolls relentlessly forward on land and air, and often from nowhere (drones).

GHK Lall

No “complicity” was among the last words reported to have been uttered by the ghastly incandescent silhouette made by Airman Aaron Bushnell. It made a deep gash in my mind. Men sacrificing for a noble cause, for strangers, for what is right against a world of wrongs. We have men here who throw in the towel before the first bell is rung. Every manner of insulting assault is piled upon Guyanese. Every kind of degrading oppression is delivered against the Guyanese people. Every type of contempt imaginable is configured and then hurled against Guyanese. Guyanese political leaders have joined forces with the invaders and clear the way of obstacles to welcome all exploiters. Aaron Bushnell showed that life is not so rich that he was ready to live like some cheap harlot selling his or her soul.

In this disputed patch of paradise, Guyanese have been given the best and worst of gifts. All this wealth and all these leaders who are of nothing but stealth. One, two, three, any number of them, are unready and unsound, and untutored and unremarkable in the strength and skill and sagacity required to make the best of the nation’s gifts. One leader is a verbal stickup artist, another is an old-fashioned fascist, and still another is a chemist. All are ventriloquists mouthing the enslavers lines. They are busy blending clever potions for their fellow Guyanese that favor their foreign ravishers. An American in the prime of his youth can surrender his precious hold on life for those who are oppressed in Gaza, and here we have those who are full of the frothiness that benefits those with the whip hand. They cannot take a stand for their own homegrown brothers and sisters of the soil. The leaders we have in Guyana today remind of a dog that barks for any biscuit, even where there is none present; they roll over on their backs without being asked. It is the saddest sight. They parse phrases, split syllables, and spit in the face of their fellow citizens. The life of betrayers is made so much sweeter with power and money, and how much they cherish it. They couldn’t sacrifice honor and ethics for they had neither. They sacrifice their own, and their hopes. This is how they are nakedly, blatantly, foully complicit in supporting the machine running all over this country and its citizens.

If anyone thinks that I am trying to bring down any Guyanese leader, they take first prize for being completely wrong. There must be the courage to open their eyes (and their people) so that they can survey how naked and frail they appear before the world; and I help them to pinch their nostrils, so that they can smell themselves, and appreciate the ugly, dirty scent that most Guyanese now sniff out and absorb as coming from them.

There is a different kind of machine here in Guyana’s political and social environments. Once America took it upon itself to be the world’s policeman. Today, it is the fate of Guyanese to live with America, the dirty cop, the crooked station-house commander. Like never before in the short and scorched history of their labored journey, Guyanese have the most urgent need for leaders, who are all about giving them mastery over their own affairs. What they got instead are those whose primary interests are about being masters of their own perverse ambitions (power). Political leaders, civic leaders, technocratic leaders (even religious leaders) have all yielded, for the most part, in abject surrender to the caprices of those who commit crimes against the Guyanese people. No names, no groups, are tendered. They make no sacrifice of their own. They sacrifice Guyanese for a dog bone, a dollar, and a belly rub.

Some leaders are so far gone that demagogic slanders come automatically to them; weak men now comfortable in publicly urinating on themselves; not caring how they soil themselves in public. Verbal Molotov cocktails blowup in their hands first, then strip the flesh from their faces. This is the sum of the local political leadership machine prostrating itself before the foreign profit machine. If these are the generals in their rout and flight, then do not even bother to look for the privates and corporals. Airman Aaron Bushnell chose his final statement in life, and place of objection to make it, well. Here in Guyana, we have those who burn in a collapsed heap before exploiters. Here they burn against the few who say that this should not be so.

(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.)

Aaron Bushnell, American, GHK Lall, Palestinians, sacrifice

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