Dear Editor,
I read Mr Goolsarran’s cri de coeur on the front page (SN, September 2). I accumulate the hard-edged excoriations, and the continual incontestable denunciations from varied sources, and it is as if the now opposition is still in power and carrying on in characteristic fashion.
What is going on 17 months after the May, 2015 elections? Has anything of substance changed? Are expectations too high, too charged, too profuse?
Or is it that fulfilment and delivery have lagged and are a far cry from the once glittering promise? Again, has governance of the kind so desperately sought by Guyanese, really changed, other than for the names and principals?
I hesitate to ask but must: has this country been subject to yet another episode of political confidence trickeries and tricksters? Did the electorate delude itself, compel itself, to hear what it wanted to hear, and believe what it wanted to believe? Was it so disgusted and inflamed at the old people that it threw caution to the winds and gambled away sanity, sense, and the future?
The time is still youthful, but I am inclined to think that, to a greater or lesser degree, it is some substance, some evidence of proof, in each of the areas and things identified above. Well, I predict that matters are going to get more intense in the days ahead, and this place will know where it truly stands: more of the despicable old; or a little something fresh and encouraging. Optimism is fading fast on multiple fronts. The government should be duly forewarned. Beware! Be careful! Be concerned! Be sensible!
Nobody wanted anything that even represented a whiff of the dirty detested old, which introduced so much grinding of teeth and soaring rage. When compared to the priors, the vituperation, scorn, and dismissive behaviour are not (yet) visible, but there is increasing suspicion that all is not clean or pure, as promised. I would have thought that the absolute most degrading insult that could be hurled at the coalition is that it reminds of its predecessor, that daily it is becoming indistinguishable from what went before. On a personal note, I would be outraged if anyone compared me ‒ even in passing or humorously ‒ to suspected con artists and worse. But it does not seem to matter, or result in greater care by the incumbents. They just shrug nonchalantly. I wonder if they roll eyes privately; they appear to thrive on the association with delinquents. It just does not matter from the reactions studied. Thus a destiny is diluted once again, and is retreating out of sight, once again.
Like many others, I don’t care anymore. There is the slow encroaching feeling of being jilted and the jadedness that comes with such. I have gone out of my way to give the present the benefit of the doubt in the hope that the ship of state will steady and right its course along acceptable lines. Disappointments come and are repeated.
Now there are some days when I lack the interest and drive to pick up pen to write and to share. In too many instances a world weary view now overwhelms the once bright, the once hopeful visions. It is a bad place, an increasingly gloomy place in which the new crowd declares itself pleased and proud. Guyanese want some things more than any others. These include good governance through and through, security, and unity. From all appearances, and the record, and the response of their leaders, those might as well be elusive dreams, dashed dreams once again.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
