Taking the bad with the good

Dec 19, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall

(Kaieteur News) – Read of an explosion or a mass shooting and there’s one early interpretation that encircles then takes over the mind.  Terrorism.  Sound the word terrorism and the first fear that stalks the thinking of many is of people who hail from the Middle East, or farther east.  And to nudge away nuance, I nail this on the head.  Muslims.  Islamophobia.  Xenophobia.  Then along came Hannukah celebrations in Bondi Beach, Australia, and there is an ordeal in two parts – the barbaric and the utterly extraordinary.  Amid the carnage, the Kaddish for the dead, there must be that other piercing, soaring chant.  One that celebrates a man who became a global hero, a household name, in an instant.  His name is Ahmed al Ahmed.  With a name like that, he just must be Muslim.

Are all Muslims still seen as terrorists?  Still concluded to be barbarous beasts?  Takeaway a man’s land first.  Then his means of living.  Next, his liberty.  Also, his family.  Last his dignity.  Then what has he got left, other than to be condemned to the ranks of a loser all the rest of his days?  How does a man, any man, not be prone to radicalization?  Some may pounce and declare this to be a justification for mass slaughter, the killing of innocents.  Sometimes it is better for some to keep their mouths closed and be thought of as a damn fool, than to open it and prove that he or she is an incomparably bigger imbecile.  I have learned belatedly to ignore the ignorant in the environment.  Ahmed al Ahmed did what 90%, maybe as much as 95% of men would not dream of doing, then actually stepping forward and entering an uncontrolled danger zone.  Anyone who fancies his chances with a gunman on the prowl looking for targets, and do so with his bare hands is a class all of his own.

When Ahmed al Ahmed took his life into his hands and launched himself at that machinegun maniac, he entered a gladiatorial category that welcomes only a few.  The central thrust of this writing is that Ahmed al Ahmed is a Muslim and he risked his life to save others, most likely total strangers.  From the mayhem of a man on the loose with a loaded machinegun, and who had already indicated his willingness to mow down whoever stood in his way.  He may be a rarity, but I will take those gratefully whenever there is the good fortune to encounter, even from across a vast distance.  The stereotype directed against his tribe, his environment, his religion may be maintained, his actions shrugged off.  What is one?  What is so exceptional in only one?  To pigeonhole, then spread a blanket curse, stain, stigma, on a whole people, an entire belief system, due to the heinous actions of a more than a large handful, constitutes an inhumanity of a different type.  So much easier to deliver.

When it is convenient and self-satisfying, neatly fits all existing bigotries and prejudices, to divide the world into good people (those on my side) and bad people (those that raise hackles and the worst suspicions), then I contend that that is a barbarism, by any definition.  As an aside, I was at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, many lifetimes ago.  And right on the heels of that, the anthrax scare, used the trains where that started, people died.  And at the London Subway bombing, but at a distance on July 7,2005.  I saw, heard, felt, and tasted fear, rage, and hate.  With none of that unholy trinity wholly unjustified.  I am still around, through grace, despite having my own experiences with homegrown terrorists right here in Guyana.  They also have the power to command armies of fanatics; money to burn; and enough hate in them to seek to snuff out those who don’t see the world in quiet the same way that they do.  To my knowledge, most of the Guyanese bred terrorists are not Muslims.  Remember most are not, but there are significant exceptions.  They have grown seasoned and skilled in the trade of the assassin.  The weak and fearful of Guyana need an Ahmed al Ahmed to standup and lay it all on the line, as was done in Australia.  Wouldn’t that be something?  Non-religious, non-partisan, non-sectarian.  Just human.  A human being showing the world what it is to be decent and honorable, and unprecedentedly illuminating.  May the scales of self-imposed blindness flake off piece by piece, then fall away totally.  When people standup, one man speaks, the world is better for it.

(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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• Bondi Beach, explosion, GHK Lall, Islamophobia, mass shooting, terrorism

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