Dear Editor,
I enter again where even heroes hesitate to go. I continue for my conscience, my vision for this country, and the peace of mind that comes from doing what I fervently believe is right. I speak about shared governance. In doing so, I get some understanding of what it means to be Ms. Claudette Singh.
I am for shared governance, be it bipartisan, multiethnic, civil cum political societies, or any other incarnation. I am all for it, because I envision it as the way out of the sewer into which we drag each other down. I admit upfront that shared or inclusive or national government is not of the idealistic, merely the realistic, what our bitter circumstances should accept as pragmatic. Any other structure, however well-intentioned, is a recipe for national tragedy. For the many disbelievers and naysayers, I say look and listen to the hostilities and rages that flourish.
Editor, I take this in another direction. I scan headlines and read of Black brothers (they may not think of me as such, but I do of them) who called recently for what I did long ago. I question neither their underpinnings nor their agendas. Instead, I welcome their sanity and the commonsense utility to which they dedicate energies. Yet as I do so, the roused lion’s den rears up and rushes forward to mangle me and them. I disagree, but I understand all about backdoor constructions and entrances, and reflexive allegations about deviousness through motives intended to cheat and deny the opposition.
I understand the depths of the raging passions. I accept the venoms that violate the good faith of contrarians, who call for a different governance apparatus at this time. I regret what is believed to vindicate the positions of those who unleash violent verbal salvos in the direction of those few others who call for, dare to whisper, anything of conceding, responding, sharing. We don’t know, and we don’t care, anything about that with which we play. This is true for both coalition and opposition, both of which groups are bent to their way and vision solely to lead forward. That was yesterday, this is today.
For any of these representations, the ugly follows. About root cause and responsibility. About tampering and rigging that brought us to this place. The worst precedes: traitor, liar, fraud, opportunist, maybe even self-hating and racist, all in one. Those are the better ones, and reserved for those who have never identified with or exemplified in any manner either the superiority or monopoly (or right and birthright, or slavery system or caste system) of any one ethnic grouping in Guyana, or anywhere. It is the price to be paid for saying that all of us (not only the emperor) have no clothes on, even a fig leaf to modify the nakedness of our wraths and the vileness in which elections bury us.
A close Black friend was alarmed that I have ‘switched.’ I am appalled that this is where we helplessly end up: that when an Indian rightfully called out the then PPP government, there is glee; but when the same standard is applied to the coalition administration, then he is iniquitous and treacherous. And, similarly, when a Black Guyanese speaks out against the coalition, then he, too, can only be automatically a PPP stooge.
I am embarrassed that this is the limit of our thinking. I am disturbed that we refuse to move beyond the prisons of our racial fences and see not what is inimical to one’s party interests, but what is continuously of conscience and country. I lend my voice and my heart, again, to calls for inclusive governance. I should know better, but I am too lacking.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
