Bright new words, postures, same grim biases and prejudices

Aug 30, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – Interesting and repelling the lengths to which men, who think that they are Solomonic in substance, go to conceal their true objectives. Frightening and fascinating how words are smoothed over to represent what is new, inviting. Yet, deep down, what is refined and regurgitated represent nothing but the cheap and sordid. I make fleeting references to both local and overseas environments, to emphasize the points made. Or help them collapse under the weight of their weaknesses.

A self-congratulating new construction has to be “don’t split the vote.” When the Indian man says that I insist that those four fateful words “(don’t split the vote)” stand as the politically correct and utterly lovable reincarnation of “apaan jaat” or vote fuh yuh mateee. The more the world spins on its axis, the more it is fastened in place. When the African man makes use of the same “don’t split the vote”, then what is he about if not the supremacy of Black Power, or stack up for what is black? After three quarters of a century at the national wicket, this country hasn’t scored a single run. Perhaps, it is more sensible to assert that it hasn’t offered a single stroke. All it does (its peoples) is pad away, and pad away.

Duck and appeal for a wide. For, of course, there are international referees, and they know the rules of the game better than Guyanese ever will. Such as who belongs at the wicket, who should be allowed to come out of the pavilion. Not even be there. Umpires have that final say, veto power. When that is surrendered to them, they seize with both hands.

In this town, a dominant political group likes to remind everyone that it cannot be beaten in a fair fight. The other contestants, their opponents, have to join to swell their numbers to bridge their deficits, but still have the temerity to call that a straight fight and a clean victory. I think there is some merit to that argument. Though some may stretch the facts, the ground is still unchanged. But what about today, as in right now? There is an opponent in the field of jousting, who is of paltry standing, with not much to recommend him, but examine who and what is brought to bear against him. I don’t know, how a fair fight, with neither fixing nor manipulating, could be said to be. Not when a big, bad, unchallengeable power, an inseparable ally, is recruited to intervene and inhibit what has long been railed against. It is what Guyanese call double-banking, what I term ambushing and cutting the ground from under the feet. Thus, after all the noble weeping, all the wails about unfairness and what is unsavory, there is maneuvering for advantage. Cut through all the speeches, and it is from Washington to Georgetown with a folded fist. What was once stood against is now walked back. Times change. People change faster, more craftily. I look past Guyana.

In the US, Republicans came up with a vote getter, a surefire winner. States rights, the inviolable nature of those. Courts stood up; courts upheld. Then along came Al Gore twenty years ago, only to catch some jurists on America’s highest tribunal suddenly, conveniently forgetting personal principles, and the sacred stature of States rights. As they long interpreted it, long ruled on it. Conservatives had their wars against budget deficits, until they didn’t. By themselves, the jurists trampled upon precedent, their own judgments, and revealed their secrets -their secret human selves. Poisoned, disfigured, mildewed. Thus, was set the stage at the turn of this millennium for the ravages and wreckages of today. Many still insist that such are the auspices of justice, such is democracy in its traumas and throes towards higher ideals.

It is likely that India’s Narendra Modi comforts himself similarly about being the leader of the biggest democracy. Somebody should politely, quietly, ask him: sir, what about Kashmir? What about the quality of Muslim citizenship, all 200 million of them? And since I am on this journey that covers a great deal of territory, I stopover in Jerusalem. Ah, the birthplace of holy men; and also, the killer of prophets. There is another Prime Minister there, Benjamin Netanyahu. There is the Radical Right in Israel. Then, there is the raging catastrophe of Gaza. If I remember well, the Torah and the Talmud have teachings re managing such.

Whether Guyana, the USA, Africa, or Mother India, men talk, then act. Oftentimes, the preference is that they don’t, so as to save them from soiling themselves, exhibiting the kind of fools that they are. We always hear about sacred constitutions. Of men profane from mouth to mind, nothing is ever heard or seen. Just smelled and sensed, so putrid their presences.

(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, new words, postures, prejudices, same grim biases

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