In the spirit of Christmas: from me to Excellency Ali

Jan 04, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News- It could be from father to son, considering our respective ages.  However, with an eye to his high office, I content myself with from brother Gabriel to Brother Irfaan.  May the presumption be excused.  To speak in a different language is more than the moment of great season.  More than related to regard for power and position.  Greater than the dismay at how things have turned out in the presidential fold.  It is of what is neglected, but of what could be.  This is the human thing to do, one brother to another.  Whether it encounters deafness, or the shrillness of compulsive furiousness.

Brother Irfaan, you need to listen to the outlying voices, all voices.  Only listening to paid voices, and thrill in those who delight to write and speak what pleases is spiritual and intellectual barrenness itself.  It may intrude on the moral and ethical, too.  Whither wisdom, be it of the common man or a president?  To listen and absorb deep inside is to help to amend.  If amending or adjusting is too demanding (even considered to be below station), then I sub introspection and travelling to a different place.  Not all the time, not even most of the time; but certainly, some of the time.  More than fraternal, I daresay.  Think of the presidential, the national.

All this cursing, Brother Irfaan, lead to one place.  Tensed encampments.  Hardened positions.  Bitter animosities.  No president should relish such a grim environment, any such stormy atmosphere.  But both are present, dear Brother Ali, and your hands have some traces.  More than mere traces, stains that were irremovable now widen, deepen.  Yes, I personalize with the pronoun(s) selected.  Premediated.  Neither criticism nor commentary.  Simply what is common decency.  When there is listening, there is learning, then adjusting.  There just could be a society that is less torn and despondent; one more open to oneness, readier for the kind of personal duty that contributes to a better, brighter Guyana.

Brother Irfaan, I say it quietly, clearly.  There is too much incendiary fury in this country.  What now stands as national culture is more than counterproductive.  It is self-destructive.  All this wealth, all this blight.  The president gets his back up, the faces of the people steel into flintiness.  Faces have a tendency to relax, that tautness can’t stay so for too long.  Cramps takeover.  Hearts, on the other hand, are a tad more complicated.  Grudges are held forever.  The instinct towards the retaliatory kindles, festers, grows in flaming expression.

From one citizen and brother to another, there is something that even the most unlearned have a powerful understanding, what flows from indefinable discernment.  It is that distinguishing feature that separates man from beast.  The most ordinary know truth, appreciate straightness, cherish the profound decency of both.  They detect when it is present, know when it is not.  The oil stories, Brother Irfaan, they don’t make sense.  The contract award narratives do not add up, Brother Irfaan.  And, so are defences about corruption and management and fidelity to laws and constitution, and the whole 29 yards.  Indeed, the litany is that commanding, that attracting of interest, condemnation.

Thus, my brother Irfaan, stridency and pretence at fury registers as, ah, so many globs of hypocrisy. Shallowness over the inexplicable. Wealth accumulation is one.  Covetousness and insatiable greed cannot be minimized, parlayed into nonexistence.  The eyesight of hungry people, the sensitivity of the impoverished to any errant sound, is keener.  Lashing out is seen as a pathetic attempt to coverup, injuring again with yet another insult.  The wrong road is taken.  I could get sophisticated and make this complicated by referencing Benay and Goebbels, of propaganda and deception notoriety, but to what end, my brother?  Add rancour to the deep pool of wrath?  Who is helping whom then?  From the darkness to the light?  From the cellblock where character is incarcerated to that consecrated ground, which has been so elusive to the touch of every Guyanese?  Including presidents and vice presidents and prime ministers.  And peons, such as myself.

Brother Irfaan, I plead before you: listen.  Please listen and rise.  Not to walk the same old and failed way.  But aim for higher ground, then try.  I am.  Though a peon, I abhor the label that may be relevant.  Primitive.  Then, whether president or peasant, the primordial swamp is my home.  It is not one to be loved.  No president should.  The same goes for former presidents and prime ministers, both present and past.  This is not the way to go. It is not what the inheritance of this oil should transform us into, where it takes us.  We must prove ourselves worthier.  Not by belligerence.  Not by verbal thunderbolts and exploding blasting caps.  Who benefits and for how long, and in what manner, and towards what destiny?  It is time to take my leave.  A hard journey walked.  My feet are bare, my heart torn.  But my spirit will endure, still find a way to soar.

Brother Irfaan: I think, I know, that you are better than this.  I ask you to pray for me to the Merciful and Beneficent One that I may be, too.  We can have a better Guyana.  A new road must be tried.  I try.

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

(In the spirit of Christmas: from me to Excellency Ali)

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• brighter Guyana, encounters deafness, high office, intellectual barrenness, President

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