Ayotallah Ali, Archbishop Edghill, Pandit Persaud – stand for what is sacred 

Apr 02, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – The Hon Gail Teixeira, Minister and MP will go down as a fighter when a credible history of Guyana’s politics is written.  To my dismay, the same Ms. Teixeira was a flop, a total failure in her representations (misrepresentations are more on the money) before the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC).

To her credit, she tried valiantly with the losing hand dealt her; to her discredit, her sleeves were a shade too long: there were some other strange cards lost in the layers of cloth.  One card had to do with the media, and the PPP Government’s mismanagement of it.  I say maiming it, mangling it.  So, I cast my eyes away from the grandly gifted MP Texeira and towards some of her comrades in the PPP, three of these incomparable luminosities, who give new meanings to the brightness generated by LED.

First, in continuous attempts to oppress members of the independent media and suppress its messages, there is a colleague of Ms. Teixeira, a cabinet minister and lawmaker no less, whose name is always mentioned when the Fourth Estate is defiled through scurrilous attacks. His fingerprints and voiceprints are all over PPP media monstrosities, with the minister now a monster of Germanic proportions. For the slow minded, I present Goebbels, the Guyanese Goebbels. Imagine this: the party of Cheddi is a nazi entity.  Indeed, the local man in the PPP cabinet has done his dirty jobs too well; he is reported to have the sponsoring and championing, as well as inciting, of those in leadership positions. Those who are bald of ethics, and bald of standards and character.  The noble art of politics will always have its bad dudes, its dirty warriors who are best hidden from sight.  The Romans and Greeks had them, and the Americans and British (and soon to arrive French) have them.  The test of honorable men and women of dignity is what they do about them.  Not what use they make of them, or what about what abominations they applaud in them.  It is what honest men and esteemed women in government do about them, the Goebbels in their bosom.  This leads me to introduce the three brethren (that they are) in the PPP, and how they have failed.  If Guyanese flay me for employing certain words (honest and esteemed) in the context of the government and its people, I stand bowed, and absorb my blows.

The three stalwarts in the PPP are Dr. Irfaan Ali (ayatollah), Doctor of Divinity Juan Edghill (archbishop) and Dr. Vindya Persaud (pandita).  My fellow citizens should immediately notice the single thread that connects them.  The spiritual it is, and though the PPP has become increasingly godless capitalists, it still applies.  For those who ponder the connection to the UNHRC and media mayhem in Guyana, patience is pleaded.

President Ali is prone to don his traditional garb and knows his suras.  It is astonishing and embarrassing (to me) that a leader and believer could stand what his cabinet colleague has come to embody, his manifestations of shaitan when the media just must be silenced.  The Prophet Muhammed (Blessed be his name) would be incensed.  Ayatollah Ali should listen to this voice of an infidel calling from the wilderness: do not allow thine own self to be so besmirched, my liege.  I acknowledge that Dr. Irfaan’s stomach for the profaning has grown increasing resilient.  But it shouldn’t have to house so much that is toxic.  And revolting.  Look at what the UNHRC did to Guyana (and the PPP Government).  There is only so long that pretenses at ignorance will last, cap’n.  Check on the trouble that visited Cde Gail, and the arsenic that is bhai Jagdeo’s bitter brew.  What he used to relish now ravages.

Then there is the archbishop of Robb Street, Juan Edghill, a man of the cloth I am told.  From this vantage point, sir, it looks like a trip to the laundry should be a priority.  Discoloration, dear archbishop Edghill, comes from rubbing shoulders with those who infest murky shadows.  The shadow of the valley of darkness (death) written so majestically about in the 23^rd Psalm.  I can always agree with archbishop Edghill that Jesus’s company was sinners and tax collectors.  But not revilers, lordship.  Not scorners and scoffers, O Eminent One in the PPP.  God’s name loses luster among men when his shepherds falter, yield to party interests ahead of spiritual ones.  Archbishop Edghill now stands duly informed.

Next, there is the Hindu priestess, Dr. Vindya Persaud.  In the name of Rama, Shiva, and Laxmi, where have the immaculate precepts of dharma fled?  This can never be, should not ever be, the kind of company kept.  Despite some grievous missteps, some hopes still linger here. I pinned ayatollah Ali to his suras; represent them impeccably, sir.  I attached archbishop Edghill to his gospels; live them well, grand duke of the church. I now encircle pandita Vindya with her sutras.  Don’t give up on what pristine divine standards demand.  It is more righteous to let go of those who offend the sensibilities of both man and God.  And the UNHRC.  Stand pandita Vindya for the Brahminic and Vedic exquisiteness that is preached to devotees.  Stand for what is clean and pure.  Distance from the foulness that tarnishes this nation, what tortures this government. To all four-brethren Ali and Edghill, and sisters Texeira and Vindya-it is why I can stand anywhere before anyone and assert anything.  Be about what is true.  Be true to some cleanliness.

(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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• Edghill, Guyana’s, Pandit, representations, written

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