Ravaged by tyrants

Apr 19, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

---

Hard Truths by GHK Lall

(Kaieteur News) – What do you think, Guyanese?  “The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants.”  Pope Leo XIV said so in Cameroon.  I salute this fine American, this vicar of Christ growing in his role.  What about others (leaders)?  Those who “manipulate religion and the very name of God for…political gain.”  ‘It’s held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters.’  Spoken like a fearless man of God.   Pope Leo doing his duty as religious leader, an American man of peace.

Guyanese need no intro to tyrants; old ones, new ones.  The result is that half of this country lives elsewhere.  Many in the remaining half hope to do so.  Oil wealth, no oil wealth.  Many of Guyana’s political leaders hobnob with tyrants, support their schemes.  Foreign tyrants are their lifelines.  Object; get ousted.  Political leadership cravenness for power incentivizes them to support any tyrant condoning their corruptions, turning a blind eye to their con games that induce hopelessness in citizens.  Political men with anatomical deficits; women in those circles are proud of their barrenness re principle, routine moral standing.  Politicians are not highly thought of, rank in the same category as used car salesmen, race track touts.  Sleaze is their second skin.  Thus, not much is expected of them; certainly not in Guyana, and not of one’s own free will.

But what of men and women of the cloth, god-fearing believers, those calling themselves spiritual shepherds?  They can be Christian, Hindu, Muslim.  Where are priests and pastors?  How about pandits and yogis?  And include imams and maulvis, what about them?  The love of money, love of being counted, and wanting to stay on the inside have distorted the minds, muzzled the mouths of many of them.  When they speak, it’s to support wrongdoers.  They condone rank excesses.  To look aside, pretend not to see anything.  The greatest evil is not tyrants or demagogues.  But those who partner with, uphold, darkness and dirtiness.  In support of unsavory leadership, Guyanese hear of excellence in leadership.  Amid disunity, and political practices that widen the disunity, pastors, pandits, and maulanas barter their consciences.  Reconfigure their souls to stand with those who tear apart this society.  The whole rotted structure is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters.  So, the American in Cameroon by way of Chicago and the Vatican took a courageous stand; drew a line in the sand before the world.  I applaud him.  Stand with him on that declaration about tyrants destroying the world, and the mindless who blindly support them.

What would he have to say if Guyana is studied?  About its leaders?  Its government and opposition?  Its network of supporters that love to live with constant lies, endorse pathological liars?  The trail of evidence is long and sordid.  The National Assembly.  Oil and gas.  Political presences in houses of worship.  Shepherds and worshippers happiest around deceivers, tricksters, and predators.  A country that boasts of leaders who disdain moral compass and ethical anchor is no country at all.  I make allowance: a conman country.  A country where religious leaders mislead their flock, deceive themselves (for personal gain), and for personal advancement twist their tongues, so that opportunity arrives.  Bargaining among the deformed.

When the call of politics becomes so pervasive and dominant in the houses of worship, and in angles taken by spiritual leaders, then that’s an upside-down world.  Churchmen can be among some of the worst, but rarely so many big busloads of them.  There are some speaking out in the US.  It would inspire to hear similar voices in Guyana.  Here men fix their words, so they can collect soup.  Here, politicians cultivate them, to give themselves a sheen of honesty, decency, and respectability.  A sicko is a sicko and racists can’t shed their skins.  They can recruit countless fawners and self-enrichers.  They can’t buy authenticity.  People of principle keep their distance.  When good men and women degrade themselves, there’s the Guyana that exists today.  Tyrants.  Bigots.  Conmen.  Reign supreme.  Some face themselves, somehow.  Some still pray to God.  The kind wearing a suit, a slippery smile, fishy handshake.

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

---

• GHK Lall, Pope Leo, Ravaged, tyrants

---