Free men, free country, free Exxon’s peculiar institution, its slavery 

May 30, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – It was the legendary Bob Marley who pleaded to colored people all over the world “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery….”  It was with good reason that he called himself and his choir, the Wailers, some things have struck a deep chord.  Redemption Song is one of those classics that inspire the mind, that touches to the core and brings a shiver.

On each occasion that I ponder that cry into my soul that should sweep through Guyana, there is some more hearing of the profoundness that graces those five words now etched into immortality.  On this day of national Independence, I find myself thinking of their reach, the places where they should go, but from where there is so much local retreating.  On this Guyanese day, whither the sacred liberty of the truly emancipated!

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery….”  I nod to the grip of racial slavery.  I stare at the passions stoked by political slavery.  There is disgust at the slavery wrought by cult leaders and the blind bondage that is so fatal to free thinking, so devastating to our prospects.  If the Prophet Mohamed had such fervent neighbors and followers, he would not have had to partake of the hegira in 622 from Mecca to Medina.  Nor would the Galilean have had occasion to ‘go out of their midst’ to fulfill his own defined time. I recall Jonestown, and that distant enclave is now reborn and occupies spaces throughout Guyana.  The twisted and demented reverend from California has a handful of reincarnations in places he could only have dreamed of, but there they are, the Guyanese versions of an American destroyer.

The call of a different Robert Oppenheimer.  The call of a commander of the cult.  Followers willingly drink the blood of others; all the leader has to do is to point a finger.  If they believe that they could get away with it, leaders will dash babies to pieces with cheerful zeal, and not think twice about such horrors.  To keep their hands clean, leaders recruit followers to do their dirty deeds.  This is where independence from old masters has been replaced by their offspring in the New World.  It might be new, and there is no arguing that fact here, but the practices are as old as harlotry, and twice as unsavory, the essence of extraordinary rapine.  On this Independence Day (really yesterday), this is where Guyanese are, the quality of the emancipation of their minds.

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery….”  Mental slavery fuels racial slavery, what is prized for the psychic energies that it unleashes.  All this potential, and there is willingness by Guyanese to remain yoked to what has hobbled and poisoned.  The cousins of the old lecherous, covetous, treacherous masters now study the territory and lace their own racial poisons into the environment.  Some have received an abundance of riches; the bulk of the people are told that their turn will come, only they don’t know when.  That is, if ever.  With Jim Jones for leaders, the promise is always of heaven, then there is also that long, hard crash.  Many in Guyana are still yearning for tomorrow when the maximum blessings from the local patrimony will flow like never before.  Racial slavery continues to rope Guyanese to a narrow rainbow that consists of two colors. One is brown, the other is black.  Meanwhile, the people who are of a brighter, lighter complexion have their own favorite color that is treasured above all other things. It is green, and though not grass, it is even more abundant for them.

How stupid can a people be?  I cut through the niceties of correctness and slap my people repeatedly across the face, if only to bring them to their senses, to get some tiny spark out of them.  I say it again: how stupid can my sisters and brothers be in this land of ours, now converted into a playground and fairyland for others?  Man! They must hate me with passion, mark me.  I could give a damn.  The new enslavers who come from afar are too civilized, too cute, for their own good to dip their hands into the swamp that is the Guyana of this era.  They get my local brothers to jump to the ring of their bell.  This is more than mental slavery.  This is national slavery, and universal slavery, all in one place.

“Emancipate yourself /from mental slavery….” is the call and cry that goes out on this post-Independence Day.  To free oneself from mental slavery is to step away from the pull of political slavery.  Who the hell cares about ideology?  Just show the people the money that belongs to them, that should be theirs first, and in the fairest share.  A man from foreign shores claims to be the best benefactor ever, a local one the best friend, of all Guyanese.  The fire should flare from the nostrils, and when the air clears, they should see things our way, or there is only one way left as a choice.  It is that highway over there.  Enough of this craven groveling from the heights, this mongrelizing of the manhood and womanhood of Guyanese.  My word! What must these people think of locals?  No backbone.  Only one bone after another to pick with another, or to stick to the other.

Emancipate from mental slavery…” the slavery of the fair skinned.  “None but ourselves can free ourselves can free our minds.”  On this day that is supposed to represent national liberty, I reach to all by brothers and sisters of Guyana: “Won’t you help to sing, these songs of freedom?” Then get up and get going from the place to which all have been so slavishly stuck for centuries, renewed now for a decade.  On this Independence Day, the resolve of Guyanese must be: free men in a free country.  Freedom from America’s newest peculiar institution, this odious Exxon contract.  This is not a contractual issue; it is a moral one.

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• Bob Marley, country, Exxon’s, legendary, slavery

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