Sanctity, sanctity, sanctity – an era of infamy

Jan 28, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Something strange happened, while I was reflecting on Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali and his tongue-tying, gut loosening, “sanctity of contract” passion.  I found myself thinking of the former British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill.  Lord arch imperialist, Mr. blood, sweat, and tears.  How different are some men like those with unconquerable convictions, and those do the cha-cha-cha, swaying and sidestepping?

How adept on their feet could some leaders be like a combination of Rudolf Nureyev and master rapper, Snoop Dog.  Yes, I know it makes for a peculiar picture, a ballet dancer and a street rapper: England’s Churchill and Guyana’s Ali, the former all fire and forked lightning, the latter a whimper and a scamper and a dampener on the hope of the Guyanese people.

Winston Churchill was all perspiration and inspiration in the face of Teutonic thunderbolts.  “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and streets…in the hills, we shall never surrender.”  How glaring and bitter the contrast in President Mohamed Irfaan Ali; the only fight he has in him is that compulsive urge that sends him in hurried, stumbling flight.

“Sanctity of contract” is President Ali’s masterpiece.  His battery of lawyers searched and riffled through encyclopedias to put in his hand what takes shame off his face.  It doesn’t; no matter how much the president may believe that “sanctity of contract” gives him a suit of armor to wear, and a battle axe to pummel those Guyanese who say, sanctity of contract is a sellout.  That’s his version of “we shall fight on the seas and oceans…and whatever the cost may be…”.  I congratulate President Ali on taking the safest, the most well barricaded area, from which to wage war on behalf of the Guyanese people against the hordes of oilmen and their allies.  But, is he really?

If Churchill had thrown himself down at the feet of the rampaging German war machine, there would be no House of Commons, there would be no British Isles today, there would be no Commonwealth Group of countries.  There would have been German camps with the Master Race rising to its full height and slashing left and right at those deemed to be undesirables and parasites, fit only for extinction.  For some reason that is a mystery to me that President Ali and his company of self-enslaving comrades would find the idea of American slavery just as acceptable as the German one that went up in ashes a hundred years ago.

For a man whose strides through life has been graced with the distinctively slippery, it is warming to see Excellency Ali find stability in sanctity of contract.  Sanctity, sanctity, sanctity is now the mantra and magnum opus of Guyana’s rather silky president.  A Chinese silkworm is of no match to Guyana’s head of state in the amount of contract yarns that he produces.  His head is filled with sanctity of contract, his eyes light up with sanctity of contract, and his mouth overflows with the rich liquids of sanctity of contract, like a happy child with a bright, shiny new toy.  The Americans in Guyana, like Mr. Alistair Routledge, must be counting their blessings from whichever god they bow down before (money is a leading contender).  I say this because sanctity, sanctity, sanctity has to be an eerie reminder of that fateful Sunday morning in December over there in once tranquil Hawaii.  It was when the Japanese broke out and let loose with Tora, Tora, Tora.  What was a day that would live in infamy for a generation of Americans is now that of the Guyanese people.  Just as how the Japanese blindsided the Yankees at Pearl Harbor, so the Americans pass on the favour to Guyanese with that 2016 Exxon oil contract.  It is what has since gone down in the sordid annals of oil as the worst concoction emerging from the mind of man since the building of those theaters of blood in Austria.  Unlike Americans, Guyanese live with that notoriety for more than a day; it looks like many lifetimes currently.

In this dark and dangerous milieu, Guyana’s President Ali is more focused on flair and froth than on anything that has a spark of fight.  Sanctity of contract is his weapon of choice.  It is what he uses to broadside and bring down his own people; he is that most curious of guerilla fighters: one who lends his energies and muscle to bolster the enemy fortifications.  For all of his blatantly racist tendencies, his imperialist instincts, Winston Churchill was politically savvy enough to know who was ally and who was an assassin waiting in ambush to lop his head off.  He knew how to marshal his scarce assets, how to array them for the best results.  Unfortunately, Excellency Ali’s PhD didn’t cover that kind of intricate symmetry.

Now every time I hear that word sanctity I think of treachery.  When the echo of sanctity of contract comes into earshot, I shake my head at the infamy.  Exxon Pearl Harbored Guyana with that contractual monstrosity, just like Tojo and Yamamoto did in their sneak attack.  When Guyana needs a General Douglas MacArthur, it has to be satisfied with Sergeant Bilko.

(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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• Chinese, Churchill, Commons, passion, President Irfaan Ali, sidestepping, t

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