That ever-present ‘they’

Nov 07, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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…Hard Truths

By GHK Lall 

Kaieteur News- What is meant by ‘they’?  As sprinkled generously by such Guyanese giants as President Ali, Vice President Jagdeo, and Attorney General Nandlall.  Who are ‘they?’  Out with the mystery, Excellencies.  I am beginning to get worried – am I considered to be a member of this secret society named ‘they?’

President Ali goes to some place or the other, the latest of which was the occasion of Deepavali, and he lets loose with his now copyrighted one word descriptive: there it was “they” again.  Being the pristine president that he is, and not some crude primitive, Excellency Ali made sure that his immediate audience and the wider Guyanese one [possibly international one also] were regaled with his now ubiquitous ‘they.’

The PPP Government is about what is good.  By sheer force of logic, that leaves the province of evil for the section of Guyanese now laboring under the label of ‘they.’  Does the continual referring to “they” have the PNC in mind?  As a practical matter, what does the disparagement of “they” (dem peeple) do to the psyche of the overwhelming majority in the second largest demographic in Guyana?  I always was told that the president was about unity.  Perhaps, he or one of his vaunted public relations people, can elaborate on the necessity of dividing things into ‘we’ versus ‘they’, or us against them.  Would some Guyanese help a peon like me to understand my betters better.

Similarly, the man from Unity, the Almighty VP, Bhar-rat Jagdeo has taken a fancy to spicing up liberally what he calls press conferences with, (it is by now the easiest of guesses) that telltale condemnatory “they.”  They have done this, they have done that, and they have all been bloody wrong all the damn time.  There it is again: the pure versus the perverse, the triumph of good over evil.  By some stroke of fortune, Vice President Jagdeo was wise enough to say less than normal during the recent Diwali celebrations.  Imagine if he were to pontificate profusely about light and darkness.  It is time for me to go back to the prairies of New York, isn’t it?  It goes without saying that if he had treated himself to dive into the distinction between light and darkness, his idea of treats could have deteriorated into the tricking that is part and parcel of Halloween.

Come on, fellow Guyanese: today Jagdeo is more American than Alistair Routledge himself.  The latter is another late October prankster, and not just during October, and not just with candies, but with that light, sweet commodity way out there.  So, I am still stuck in this sticky wicket.  Who are the ‘they’ that Ali first, and now Jagdeo refers to, so sweetly?  If it is the PNC (and I believe it is), then both of them (they) should be man enough to come out and say it.  The PNC is bad, the PPP is good.  Burnham was bad, Jagdeo is the best.  The smart mouth boys and the striped pants brigade in the high towers of the PPP Government, who delight in impressing the natives about their glorious attributes should lay it all the line.  Why not come straight out and divide Guyana into a Manichean construct.  The PPP represents all that is good.  The PNC (and the AFC, naturally) is the epitome of everything that is evil.  They should cut out all this cuteness about ‘they.’  The PNC is evil, or it is not.  Let it all out, and damn the torpedoes.

Never one to be silent for too long, the Hon. Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, came trundling along.  What’s that program called? Abuse of the News?  Views on the News?  Whatever it is, the AG usually gets it right.  But according to his way of thinking only.  There he was in lockstep with his seniors: one again –‘they.’  Damnit! Will somebody in the PPP call a spade a spade?  It was in the context of GECOM and had something to do with biometrics.

Proving ground and battleground shaping up alarmingly, I (note the ownership) am saying so from now.  Now, as all Guyana knows, AG Nandlall is smarter than Solomon.  The question is why does a man of his known prowess has to resort also to ‘they?’  As an aside, I ask not to be put on the spot, in having to define what his ‘known prowess’ represents.  Spare a brother, folks.  Here is my first and last position.  If I were to hear that tricky, that slippery, that sleazy word ‘they’ one more time, I promise to conduct a one-man protest in front of the Office of the President first, then the US Embassy.  Why the US Embassy?  Because they are the ones that are responsible for all this nonsense about ‘they.’

I was planning to beat a hasty retreat from here to get away from my fellow Americans, then I read that Donny Trump is ready to contest the results in Pennsylvania.  On second thoughts, Guyana suddenly looks like the better bet.  And it is all because of people like ‘they.’  Just to make sure everybody got that right: they not them.  And it does not encircle the PNC alone.

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

(That ever-present ‘they’)

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• Attorney General Nandlall, Deepavali, Guyanese giants, hard truths, PPP Government

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