By GHK Lall
I am appalled and disgusted. I feel stained, even though I have no relationship to anyone; it is just from being near what goes on in this society. Too often, my brothers and sisters, who claim to be decent and honorable human beings, open their mouths and condemn themselves to be the opposite. On each occasion that I think that we can’t be worse than we were before, I am stunned, when we breach prior depths and make utter spectacles of ourselves in shamelessly singing for our suppers.
In the matter of the Vice President of Guyana, as aired by VICE News, there are those Guyanese who cast aside to the winds any pretense at dignity and self-respect, any claims of what is decent and helpful to this country.
The Vice President come out looking like a man with serious troubles, and by his own hand, and it doesn’t matter at all for the army of soup drinkers, boot lickers, and those falling over themselves to outdo each other either to defend, or to justify, or to wish away what is put on the Vice President’s head.
I would have loved for this nation’s Vice President to give me cause, give me grounds, give me something to stand for him with conscience and conviction. By now, all Guyana should know where I stand: the man and leader has not helped me to rush to his defense, as much as I would like to for a brother apparently felled by his own hands, by his own record, by his own inexplicable weaknesses. When he could even invite certain kinds of people into his house to say one word about the business of the state and its peoples, then there is nothing left for conscientious citizens to do, but pray for him, and hope that he will mend his ways, fix himself, get his stories right.
But, even before he can do so for himself, the brigades of opportunists and sycophants, men with some level of education stoop to the crass and craven, with the useless in trying to rationalize by attacking the messengers and others. This is so ugly, so self-serving, so damning of both the defenders and the object of their protections, that it emphasizes again how far this society has sunk. From what I discern, clearly the Freedom House machinery is working overtime to salvage something of what is left of the Vice President’s already weak, and now further weakened, reputation. I wish them well, and the leader under siege as well. But I regret to share that the Vice President now comes across as damaged goods. His own words come back to haunt him; his own relationships cultivated so cleverly have turned around on him and bitten deeply. It is where no amount of party interferences and distractions, through dogged efforts at diluting the damage done, have the necessary standing to turn the spotlight away from the Vice President and put him back together again.
To repeat, he is damaged goods and he has done this to himself. He is going to have difficulty representing us among his peers in CARICOM and beyond, given the regard that those who know, and are unbiased, will have for him. Behind the careful countenances and neutral speech, he will be looked upon with contempt. And no amount of social media ranting and defending on his behalf is going to help him. In fact, they achieve the opposite by keeping the fires burning and the attention of the world fixed on his plight.
It would be good, and it is timely, for civil society in its many prongs to weigh-in and register their call for an international probe that is truly independent to look into these claims of the Chinese, as given voice by VICE News. Trade unions, religious leaders, media sections, all should be part of a push to clear the air on this. I assert that even the likes of GAWU and the Attorney General have their roles to perform, and it is neither to defend nor attack the Vice President, but to get to the real truth and the whole truth of this shabby affairs.
