From 1st century to 21st century – looks same to me

Apr 22, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News- The Christian denominations have had their share of the angelic since Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week.  The word from before was that the mandirs and mosques had their divinely inspired visitors strolling through their portals.  I like this Guyana, am awed by it.  There was something else, a little flashing epiphany, that descended upon me, which helped to link circumstances from the 1^st century to this 21^st century.  History does more than repeat itself.  History reveals itself.

In the 1^st century, there were laws that men in long robes and solemn faces made sure were drummed into the heads of the simple.  Behold, and be serious with them.  Both the laws and the men; the latter said that this is what the commandments represent, how they must be obeyed.  What wasn’t told to the naïve believers was how their instructors were doing the opposite of what was insisted be followed to the letter.  The people were run ragged, while their religious masters had their time and their fun.  Raking in the collection, roasting the gullible over a slow burning grill, and making a mockery of God.  If all of that has a feeling of familiarity to Guyanese, they are on the right track.  They are living with just that in this their year of decision.  In sum, the religious authorities lived a life of splendour, while the people lived to push a wheelbarrow and wield a sledgehammer.  The sledgehammer came in handy, and the people also, when a strange fellow emerged out of Nazareth and shook up their world, exposed its hypocrisies.  He had to go and go he did.

When the baby boy from Bethlehem, then a grown man, went, in came that other powerful layer of brothers in arms: the men of letters (scribes) and the men of learning, who I do a favour and call wise guys.  They knew how to keep the people down, and keep themselves in good standing.  I shouldn’t need to point to those lights in red and white that sat in the pews, looked like they were listening and absorbing timeless truths, while they were casting a sly eye on who in the congregation was susceptible to a little, ah, proselytizing.  Not the spiritual kind, it pains me to say.  This is how the house of the Lord is desecrated on the day that the Lord made.  Like before, I say that all must be received as petitioners on their knees, and no more.  No speechifying, no wooing, no hustling for something that is a word beginning with V.  Those who titillate themselves with salacious thoughts should be ashamed of themselves.  Instead, think of the biggest word in Guyana today, that other also beginning with a v.  In my constant efforts to help, I refer to Winston Churchill, who pioneered his famous V gang sign a hundred years ago.  The swift of scent should pick up the trail from there.  To be the bad guy, why else are the good guys in the houses of Christian worship the last 7-8 days or so, but for the v?

Worse yet, the learned of the 1^st century learned how to manage well, and do well for themselves, given the eagle that hung over their existence.  From one eagle in the time of the Nazarene to another eagle in Guyana’s time of gangrene.  Say it ain’t so, Sam!  There was the Roman Standard then, and today in the new land of milk and honey, there is the grand American Eagle.  It doesn’t just soar; the American Eagle has landed.  Right here.  As with the Romans and Pharisees 2,000 plus years ago, there are the Americans and their occupying army.  Pontius Pilate had the backing of his Roman hordes.  There is an American governor general in Guyana who has his billboards.  And, naturally, those little bronzed brothers to scurry around to implement his orders.  Nothing has changed in 2,000 years; only the complexions and religions of the principals now calling the shots here.

Back in the day of the troublemaker (yeah! That same fella who was talking about love and his own new world order), the Chief Priests and the scribes made sure they fell over themselves to curry favour with the Romans.  From Pharisees and Sadducees to all those powerful Guyanese groups whose names end in c.  The sea of God and righteousness shining, or a sea of darkness and profaneness blighting.  Those who note that the devil can quote scripture only tell half the story.  He (or his agents) can enter the church and prowl deep inside of it.  Like the Romans, the Americans have inside help.

Amidst all of this, what about the people?  Where does all this jockeying by the scheming powerful for being on the right side of God leave the poor and ordinary people?  Since there are some Guyanese who want to know about the people’s lot, then it is my duty to enlighten them.  Whether 1^st century or 21^st, the people always find themselves where they have always been, and with all that they have ever known.  At the bottom, thanks to the betrayals of their own.  With their hopes that tomorrow, a liberator will come.  The last lesson of history is that they kill them.  And that the ‘they’ is the establishment that embrace God, pretend at truth and light, but are rancid to the core.

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

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