If the men of God, then what from the men of politics

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

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…Hard Truths

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News- The voices are quiet.  It must be Holy Week climaxing on Good Friday.  Or the Holy month of Ramadan.  Or the sacred days of Navaratri.  If the souls of the men (and women) of God are so muted, then expectations about men of politics should be consigned to the dustbin of oblivion.  The women of politics are not left out.

Throughout history, men and women of God have risen up and spoken for the poor.  They are a defeated specie in Guyana, both the poor and preachers.  The rewards of oil in the present beat hands down the prize of paradise.  In the annals of Guyana, there were those of the cloth who stood for the flock.  When and if anybody sees them, actually recognizes them, a word of introduction would be well-received.  If the men of God lack empathy for the poor and afflicted and trampled upon, then what is to be hoped for from the men and women of politics?  Nothing it seems, and nothing is what it has been.  I could insult some pastors and pandits and moulvis, but I won’t.  They have already done that to themselves.  The public incineration of spiritual standards, their own ethics, condemn them.  Not I.

From the bad old days, from various sacred scriptures came reminders of bad kings, bad princes, bad judges, bad stewards.  Fearless men and women went against the tide and warned and castigated, at great risk to themselves.  Where are they today in this society?  Are our political princes and principals across the board that pure, that immaculate?  I think not.  The poor are crying, the moral are protesting.  Those who yearn for a state of cleanliness at every level of our environment, encounter what I call ethical revulsions.  When an ethical revolution is needed, the men of God have decided that a disappearing act is the safest course of action.  Most take a still safer course: they hang with the political homeboys and political posse in the big houses of the state.

It is a plantation this Guyana: masters and servants.  Superiors and serfs.  The fraternity and sorority of citizens (without exclusion of any) that every spiritual shepherd in every denomination should be speaking about, insisting on, fighting for, is just not there.  Not a priority, beyond lip service, self-enriching platitudes.  The preference of the men and women of God is to cultivate servitude with the political cabal that drags down standards, drags down people, drags down country.  But men of the cloth are recruited to bless the dragging down.

When the few Guyanese with the spirit and ethos stand and speak about corruption and political powers that tarnish themselves, a word is found to derogate them and dismiss them.  Critics and naysayers are what have graced from the heights with traction.  I offer some humble enlightenment to utterers and condoners: the Prophet Mohamed was a critic.  Jesus was a critic of the Establishment.  And Gautama had his own protests to make in his own unique manner.  One doesn’t have to be a Mahdi or a Holy man to discern the pervasive corruption present.  How can the men of God behold the evidence of their eyes when they themselves are part of, shall I say, good times, the grand times of great self-help?  The religious men are too much an integral aspect of the problem to be part of the solution.  Once more: if the men of God are so weak, this fragile, and that clearly compromised, then the men of politics who are of nothing but money, what is malignant, must be spared.

Truth be told, I may have surrendered to temptation myself, whether an archbishop or a maulana or a guru.  So much richness, and all I have to do is behave myself, get with the programme, endorse the leaders.  No sacrifice is required, except for abandonment of what is proclaimed.  In Guyana, there is the irony of men of God working behind the scenes to suppress truth, to avoid exposure.  Not of themselves, but of those men that they worship.  Even worse, they see nothing wrong with attacking and belittling (in private) those who broke the chain of corruption and coverup.  If I had spiritual guides like that, I would spit in their faces and distance from them.  Then again, that’s the old version.  The new must be disciplined, humble, peaceable.  I am sorry for the yielding to anger.  Cheddi Jagan had his moments, so I am in decent company.  Plus, there was that moment of whips in the temple when the moneychangers had to be thrown out.

Considering the deplorable, definitely disastrous, state of the shepherds in Guyana, a greater degree of sympathy and understanding must be extended to the leading men in politics.  If the men of prayers pretend not to know better, don’t do better, then how could men of politics, and of its accompanying perversities, ever do…?  When the men of the spiritual world are so sick as to give the men of politics the blessing of their looking the other way, not seeing and knowing anything, then Guyana can only be where it is.  Somebody pray for our country.  Someone pray for all Guyanese.  Pray for me, please.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this  newspaper

(If the men of God, then what from the men of politics)

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• defeated specie, Good Friday, hard truths, Holy month of Ramadan, Navaratri.

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