TIME: One hundred rising stars

Oct 06, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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(Kaieteur News) – Congratulations are in order for His Excellency, President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali.  TIME has named him among its 100 rising global stars.  An extraordinary development.  Respect and homage are due to this President from Guyana’s soil, this brother at the bosom.  This star now internationally recognised.  May his star be one of those bright ones that do more than rise.  It stays elevated, embody genuine brightness.

As I give thanks for Excellency Ali, there’s bowing before the sacred altar of the nectar of Guyana’s seas.  Oil!  Oil, that precious commodity that the world worships, and which has so much power dripping from each drop.

The oil may be black, but its blackness blinds in its brilliance.  Indeed, black gold is beautiful.  Some are lifted, carried to the summits; others just drift along in its boiling wake.  Oil may be viscous.  Ah, but it also yields the luminous.  Oil works like a catapult for those close to its charms, through a convergence of moment, place, and opportunity.  Excellency Ali has all those in his favor, on autopilot, little to be done by him.  Leave oil alone, and everything will be alright.  So, along came TIME with a corona for Mohamed Irfaan Ali’s grand head.  Such is the stuff of legends and dreams, and Guyanese live those in profusion amid rich gushers from the depths.  A rising star among other rising stars, and why not?

What yellow metal couldn’t do, liquid black gold gallops along with free head, fleet feet.  There is a constant in these seasons of marine prosperity.  Of peculiar human sagacity isolated for special mention.  Of unusual accolades from those who man the watchtowers to determine who is fair, who wouldn’t present any problems.  All is well.  When there is alliance and allegiance to multinationals, then many are the magnificent rewards that flow from the pillars of civilisation, the keepers of its impeccable standards.  For the edification of my fellow toilers and members of this wondrous Guyanese era in the sun, Guyana has hit the headlines again.  For in this 21^st century, Prince Mohamed Irfaan Ali is the latest in a long line of maharajahs who committed himself heart, body, and soul for the good of oil.  He has done right by the multinationals, and anyone doing so can do no wrong.  A prince among princely fellows, is Guyana’s own favorite son, Excellency Ali.  From this day on, the globally haloed hero soars to the heights.  To Dr. Ali be the heraldry.  To Guyanese, be the p…ah, why cry at a birthday splash, disrupt a wedding house gala?  Unbecoming, it would be.  Untimely and unrighteous, too.

Guyana’s rising star, a budding superstar in the making, (I would argue, one already that has surpassed that Holy Grail of human achievements), Mohamed Irfaan Ali, given a small hour or two more, is set to join a galaxy of global immortals.  For what is a man hailed and etched across the consciousness of a swooning globe, if not a champion, a Spartan, a man and gladiator for tough and testing seasons.  What is such a leader, player, contributor, if not but a short stepping stone from the company of those who are not just the illumination of ordinary, mortal endeavor?  But of men and women who embodied the illustrious in extraordinary perspicacity and who have left their mark on the affairs of men, and the times in which they trod.  Sometimes for the better; other times for the memorable worse.

A TIME rising star, some of the hundred, or all of them, could with maintenance of what is considered acceptable-hewing to the right lines, playing the games right-could take their place in the company of that rare breed.  A Time Man or Woman or Person of the Year.  I would like that for Pres. Ali.  In fact, I endorse from now such a peerless development.

The TIME pantheon is rich with the vitality of heroes of yore gone by.  Just a few should suffice to inform Guyanese of the special place that they occupy today, and the one that their national leader holds in the hearts of those who make the world spin on its axis.  A TIME Person of the Year has included such incomparable historical deities as Winston Churchill (a man of wars and words); John F. Kennedy (a man of frontiers, endless possibilities); Mother Teresa (compassion and care personified).  Other distinguished TIME personalities of the year were Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler (magicians of matchless mastery); Richard Nixon (Tricky Dick); and Vladimir Putin (Mother Russia forever).  Guyana’s Mohamed Irfaan Ali belongs in TIME’s constellation, I can see the inscription: Irfaan Ali -a man of sanctity, a delightful human commodity, a leader good for the company.

This is an unsolicited, unpaid, ode to Pres. Ali: brother, leader, one-of-a-kind oil partner.

(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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• Congratulations, GHK Lall, Irfaan Ali, Rising Stars, time

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