Dear Editor,
Once again, I am thankful that I do not look at any local television fare. I am reminded that my stomach might simply be too weak to deal constructively with the acids and asininities that could be programmed, a most emphatic example of which would be the recent crudities of the opposition in parliament.
I will try to refrain from the sharp piercing adjectives, even as I strive to come to grips with what passes for decorum and leadership in the most august deliberative body (supposedly) in this republic. I am content to be enlightened through the print media; a fast moving scan is enough for me. It is all I can manage, since this can prove to be an exercise that brings flinching and shuddering. Who are these people? What is their pedigree? What can be speculated about their upbringing, or lack thereof? To those discerning citizens out there, who believe that I may have engaged in ancestor assault or desecration, I say they are welcome to the thought.
Surely these elected representatives, these circus performers, cannot be lawmakers dedicated to carrying this country beyond crocodilian crossroads. Surely no one possessing a modicum of character and class could be so careless, so reckless, so self-absorbed that they give not a damn about the images and messages delivered to aghast observers (foreign) and young children (local). That which was exhibited to the nation last week has to be the equivalent of full-bodied and fully clothed political and parliamentary pornography at its very worst, and at its most self-titillating. That should have been the conclusion of those brave enough to watch, even when such were the news summaries and accompanying video clips. There is a circus permanently based in this town; it has a ringmaster, docile charges, and many a carnival barker in full vaudevillian flight.
Prior to May 2015, it was the escapades best exemplified in predawn karaoke carrying-on by the uncouth and unwashed, with drunk driving, gun-butting, wife beating (that, too) and child molesting thrown in as added attractions, and part of the regular program that cascaded from the top. Is it any wonder that roadways (hogs) and homes (barbarians) are the way they are in this land? After all, they learn from the best and from the top. These are the lovely folks who aspire to run this country back down into the cesspool that they had carved out for it. If parliamentary comportment is a qualifier, then the opposition crowd just recorded a perfect score. Congratulations are in order.
Now, I did hear that the leader of the pack is more muted and civilized as of late. I submit that he is too late by many a blue moon. The efforts to court the favours of foreign powerbrokers were greeted with heavy skepticism to begin with, and the Roman orgy of Thursday did nothing to further an already lost cause. The foreigners must be of the same mindset with numerous Guyanese: if this is the standard when out of power, then a grim disturbing picture is furnished of what could obtain when the intoxicant of office and authority are in hand. It cannot be comforting.
It could not be comforting, for there was the Head-of-State delivering a Guyanese version of a State of the Union (state) address, and there is orchestrated chaos that speaks volumes of what is best left unmentioned. I know of men who hated-literally hated-former president Obama (and other peers), and yet they succeeded in managing themselves with some degree of public aplomb. I think it goes to what was said earlier: discipline, training, upbringing and the rest.
Here Guyanese have a Wild Bunch party painting the town (and consciousness) red. It is a telling colour, and with all the worst connotations associated. I have heard that the perpetrators had some education. I am still wondering as to what (in) disciplines that might be. This was not the parry and thrust of acrimonious debate, which can-and does-descend to blows below the waistline at times. But it was a different moment. In view of what was read, and relayed to me, I can believe that these cavorting fellows are the type that would attend a funeral and strip gleefully in the presence of those mourning. In other words, there is neither class nor standards nor any restraining bonds of civility.
If this is the local leadership bank, then I am ready to take my chances with the headman from North Korea.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
