Dear Editor,
Linden – Guyana weeps for you; Guyana weeps with you. Through the anger and tears, and in so many ways, the rest of us cry for ourselves, even as we cry for you. We stand outside your fence of grieving and hear the pain and anguish of loss; of cruelties inflicted. We stand by that same bridge with you against the cruelty of oppression.
Yesterday it was “light bill” and three dead – the casualties of an undeclared, unmentionable conflict. Three dead – the fodder of collateral damage, the calculus of an unrepentant state. And for what? For protesting against the injustice of economic enslavement at the hands of the state. For confronting the remorseless juggernaut lined up to take care of business. As the dead lay in the streets, the state showed how much it cared. Its leadership apparatus cared so much that it found the time to flagellate first the opposition; it cared enough to refuse to extend a genuine hand of condolence and comfort – even a presence – in time of trauma. Did three people die? Well, that is too bad… Now it is back to business. The business of corrupting and ruining what is good and promising, then trampling upon those who dare to stand in resistance. This time, it was with bullets. No thinking individual ever doubted that things would come to this tragic pass. From the bloodlessness of advertisement squeeze to the hysteria of presidential ‘cuss-downs’ to now the blood in the street. It was a short distance and just a matter of time. Only none knew when, where and who.
It is not surprising, since conscience and principle fled an eternity ago. Only to be replaced by the vilest of figures and schemes inimical to the interests of the state and its peoples. And none more so than the poor, the weak, the needy, the despairing. The real people who count for something amongst their fellow wretches, and the gritty, unforgiving sphere of their environments. So many roads built and collapsed, and yet not one erected to connect to the people and their yearnings and fears. It might have collapsed too, but it would have been worth the effort and cost.
Still, in the midst of this grim dawn, the day still has to be faced by the people. A day in which a vermin infested political landscape is silhouetted; one that is about a warped and jaundiced vision of nationhood. There is a ruling party that exists purely for itself; a leader ineffectual and lacking; a minister pretending to cleverness; and a commissioner trapped in this web of the self-centred and the useless. To a large extent, we all are similarly trapped, aren’t we?
That is, unless fateful bridges are crossed, irreversible decisions are made. The suffering and the dismissed of the nation have a choice that is clear and stark:
Be picked off three at a time; be hounded in pairs; be marginalized individually. Be cowed into submission and silence. And all the while, the entrenched obscenity of the despised state grows bolder; its reach and power undiminished. But there is another choice that can be made; it is one written of long ago.
There is a time for everything under the sun. In Guyana, there has been a time – a long time – of talking and listening and suffering. And of ignoring and deceiving and oppressing. Then there is another time; one of standing up, of confronting, of truly living in dignity. Or not at all. To my fellow Guyanese I say: remember Ecclesiastes and Patrick Henry.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
