The national character, a treacherous race to the bottom

Jun 15, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Amid the swirl of stormy developments that engulfs Guyana, I am compelled to revisit that searing question, that concern: what is the national character of Guyana?  And the associated question: what significance this holds for Guyanese?  For me, for all citizens?

Respect for truth-the courage to represent it, to stand for it-is a good starting place.  What is truth?  Where is that truth in Guyana, a kernel that comes close to it?  Look at Guyana, a place on global exhibition.  A place characterized by sometimes subtle, often blatant, falsehoods.  The subtler ones are shrouded under the sugarcoating of deceptions; or, as is said before the bar of justice, misrepresentations.  When perjury enjoys such paramountcy, then not much is to be expected of such a country.  Locally, memory fails frequently.  I have called that youthful dementia, when such applies.  More fitting to the environment, I also discern self-inflicted derangement.  Do anything to win the moment, to buy some respite.  For time makes struggling citizens forget.  In such conditions, a nation of amnesiacs is born, multiplies.  The untouched citizen, one who searches for truth, is viewed as an abnormality, one who renders self an invalid in the great rush of events.

When there is little to no truth as the predominant characteristic coursing through a society at all levels, then trust just died on the altars of convenience, prompts what inspires to greater deceits.  Unsurprisingly, Guyana has mutated into a country where perversity with money and duty are what profanes, now worshipped as profoundness.  Guyana’s highest house (parliament) is a dark web.  Religious houses transform into mostly motheaten dens.  The rich house that should be spacious, hospitable, accommodating, nothing but one of self-enrichment for the few, endless treacheries for the multitudes.  Cumulatively, what ought to have inspired to rise above circumstances to glorious national heights, respected ones, has brought out the absolute worst-insatiable greed, a mountain of lies (and abuse), and self-congratulation-with two objectives ascendant: ride Guyanese into the ground, ride their hopes into oblivion.  When statistics aren’t hidden, they are distorted.  When information should flow, it is frozen.  Forget about law and democracy.  It is how a country dies, from the feet up.  Because the head has given up; lolls in a grotesque rictus of insipidity and indolence.  Plus integrity shattered on the shoals of unconcern, the abandonment of duty, the violation of all that was once held sacred.

What is sacred in a country that is rudderless, spineless, headless?  From the sands of local life, I detect heads that rot.  Can Guyana and Guyanese still dare to think of, actually mention such hallowed substances as moral compass, ethical moorings?  I see no foundation.  Because of that the architecture represents nothing but a gaudy façade on the outside, merely a crumbling structure deep inside.  Beneath the tall towers, and kilos of asphalt, the graveyard of a nation expands, flourishes.  Great fortunes produced from the great crimes wreaked upon trusting, hopeful people.  When a man, a citizen, gives his word and then tramples upon it at will, what is there to stitch the fabric of a nation, what to say of the thread that should have held, but didn’t?

When I cannot trust one Guyanese to hold true to his or her sworn commitment, honour word tendered and depended upon, then I will be bold and assert, even attest, that there is no building.  There is only subtracting, demolishing.  Is this not what Guyanese have had, currently live with, despite all the fabricating, constructing?  Because when the next citizen, then the other, expands and repeats the practice of breaking word and desecrating precious trust, then only the tatters of frauds and farces result.  The national culture, the Guyanese character, is mutilated, transforms into one of condoning in partnership with covering up, then forgetting.  The crippling of character comes from the amputation of memory.  When morals and ethics, when principles and standards, when honour and self-respect, have been degraded below that of a peddler of flesh, then a nation stands before the abyss of self-destruction.  All the investor interest in the world, all the capital, all the racing to prop up this ramshackle national edifice, are for naught.  Others are masters of Guyana’s destiny.  For Guyanese have willingly abrogated that duty.  Neither courage nor substance (nor truth nor trust) existing; the absence of those feed such derelictions.

In this Guyana, who is a role model, but a liar?  Who is a hero, if not an impersonator and defrauder?  Who are the figures beloved and belittled, other than cheap hucksters and national betrayers?  Those that can’t be beaten are joined.  Like captains, like most citizens.  Thus, the rat race in the snake pit that’s Guyana.  I submit the Guyana national character.  Both the race of treachery to the bottom, the bottom breached, torn apart.

(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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• GHK Lall, Guyana, hard truths, National character

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