Dear Editor,
I read and I hear of electoral developments, and what is clear is that there is no country. There is only interest in what is for supremacy of party, and nothing else. It is that naked and in the most scarring manner that could be conceived, such is the pornography of Guyana’s elections projections. Men make prostitutes of themselves for any grasp at power. There are of party only; yet they say that they are patriots. Who and where are the bona fide Guyanese patriots, not by their own words, but in the recognition of their peers, from the incontestable quality of their positions?
I hear Mr Gaskin: this is devious. I take it a step further: this is evil and dangerous to every citizen in this country. The coalition has come to personify so many lies, at all levels, that many of its members – inner circle, diehard supporters, and the torn rank and file – have come to believe that they are truths. Like the Germans of some eight decades ago, these lies about elections are the only truths. I hesitate, but I must dare to venture to another place and remind all my fellow Guyanese what followed from those lies uttered and reuttered at another time: a holocaust came. More than one, in the gas chambers, from the air, on the land, and over the peoples. What Mr Gaskin termed “devious” incites the vicious and harvests the perilous. People have been strung up for too long. Let it be over now.
But I know and all know that there are certain words in this country that rings with the treasonous. Not the nationally treasonous, but as viewed and judged politically. The first such word is conceding. Not to be done here. Will not be done today. And from that immovably unyielding stance, comes no compromise and no cooperation, which are seen and interpreted as just as treasonous. It is why we always search for and never find anything resembling consensus, still one more word extracted from the Guyanese political dictionary as to what is considered treasonous. From this I watch men and women in the coalition playing clever games with words, only to reveal how untutored and illiterate they really are. I hear of men and women rushing to the harbour of honourable jurisprudence to besmirch its majesty with more of the dishonourable and the deplorable. I observe Guyanese – learned men, wise women, and up and down the ladder – wink and smirk at how sharp they are, how elastic their character be, when they come up with one nimble deception after another. What is of country? What kind of country can be built with patriotic minds such as these?
But there was another, retired Justice Claudette Singh, chairwoman of GECOM, who rose up on Friday and showed the world the trueness of her mettle, the steeliness of her spine. More than most, she has been battered beyond recognition, but now she rose to reclaim and recover what was taken from her. Her dignity. Her standing. Her honour. In a few resonant words and in a spirited stance, Chairwoman Singh showed Guyana what it is to be about country. I salute a patriot.
The courts of which she has been a part of the paint, should not be called upon to tarnish itself, should know better, should take a bow to the law and let the scales of justice that hang in the balance prevail. Because if there is tilt this way, then to what position? To where? Do we really want to go there? I say, No! A longstanding friend wrote the other day about “death knell” relative to annulment and restarting. I hear but I go past that: it would the death of us.
Mr Ramjattan, a senior member of the coalition earlier spoke of “respect” for result, and more recently that electoral defeat is all but foregone. Such a defeat is not the end of the world, nor possesses any fatal finality. It is occasion for hard learning and honest growing, then returning reinvigorated. But when people are gambling with all they have got left, then deaf ears and closed minds become the norm, for there is nothing more that can be lost, nothing more that can be lived for with standing.
I said it and wrote it sometime ago: the coalition lost. I moved on and so should the coalition leaders. I wrote that I cannot and will not be a part of anything that hints of taint. With each passing development from the coalition trenches, there is more and more heaping of taint on itself. Let the thing go, as hurtful and bitter as such may be. Move on. Start over. Rethink and rebuild, then remake self. I have. I said to some people last week that if I do not write a single syllable about elections for the rest of my life, I would consider myself mightily blessed. I fool myself. For some part of me is saying that, like a moth to a flame, I keep drawing too near to my detriment. But this I promise: whatever is the product of my mind, whatever is written, will be of one way only. It is what is about this country, and what is best for it and all of its peoples.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
