Dear Editor,
There is a change in the air. People are guarded and watchful, but appear less jaded, and a shade more buoyant. It is as if after a long dreary sickness, there is reinvigoration through growing hope, even incremental optimism. There is this rustling of creeping interest, and the first tentative tremulous flicker of energy.
I might be accused of being selective, or overreacting, or seeing and sensing what is conducive to my own outlook. Maybe, maybe not. Consider the following.
The once deafening music is much lower in many places; the hours more civilized; the captive neighbours held hostage emancipated from prior official and political contributory negligence. As new sheriffs patrol, the key is sustainability.
Then there is Georgetown. Everywhere there is cutting and dredging and clearing and packaging; it must have been through a war. It did. A start has been made; maintenance must follow. Must follow.
The rains have been coming down in lengthy bursts, purging demons, cleansing the accumulated rot of so many lost years. As the spirit rises, the drains lower quicker. Imagination? Miscalculation? I could be wrong, but when the digging, cleaning, de-silting, and functioning (pumps) are all amalgamated, aligned and coordinated, then this has the beginnings of a very tangible and visible success story on dry land. Let each play a part. Remember to pay taxes, and at the new rates sure to come. These are the fruits and costs of change.
Next, policing has a different feel about it. Of recent, there is manifested a certain purposefulness; an unprecedented intensity is vaguely present. Time and results will corroborate one way or another.
Additionally, there are those who have come and shared certain hard truths: Yes, they voted for the old status quo; and yes, they too are hopeful and look forward to change, different standards, a new political culture, and a more inclusive era. At the risk of getting ahead of myself, this is assuming the earmarks of an old time religious revival gathering. The sounds are there, so is the cheering and chanting. Given a few stirring hours of sermonizing, there could be converting, even believing too.
Also, there are some who say that the former ruling party ought to be in parliament, in the first instance. But in the next, announce that they don’t care if it does or it doesn’t. As for that party, I foresee a long meandering journey into irrelevancy; of those who (like Chuck Jackson) just don’t know what to do with themselves.
Here is the self-pitying sinking into the doldrums of despair. Indeed, those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. And here, too, the wash and sweep of change-resisted and denied-must accomplish its disinfesting and sanitizing work, if only for the odour of a new beginning.
Change I feel. The rest of Guyana should too.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
