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I am worried. President Ali made me worried before relative to the paleness of his fondness for truth. Still, I thought it was going to be a swiftly passing phase in the cyclone that is his presidency, that strength of truth would return and takeover both the man and his time at the helm. Regrettably, the paleness of truth in the Ali government has only gotten sicklier looking, now with an almost deathly pallor.
According to the book of President Ali, the world of Guyana began in 1992. It stopped in 2015, when a comet hit here, and things fell apart. Restoration has begun again since August 2020. President Ali could be given a pass for having a one-eyed and half-cocked view of developments in Guyana. He, however, cannot be spared for having a one-track mind about where Guyana was, how that came about, and where it is today. I start by using reverse chronology.
The president lowered his voice and spoke in poetic cadences at the recently concluded indigenous confab of how sweet liberty in the face of oppression is. He can follow a script, I will give him that, but he can’t live it. For shortly afterwards last week, Mr. Vincent Henry, a Member of Parliament of indigenous roots was unceremoniously run out of the National Toshaos Council gathering in the capital city. Who is for freedom and who is about oppression and the fear of open doors and frank conversation could not have had a better set of circumstances as proof.
Mr. Mervyn Williams, a former MP, and an indigenous son of Guyana was also declared persona non grata at the Toshaos conference and blocked from joining the proceedings. The sweet liberty of Mohamed Irfaan Ali does have a strange way of manifesting itself in Guyana. Using that as a standard, I must contemplate if I would be blocked from showing my face at a conference discussing Indo Guyanese (or any) matters in this country.
I wonder what threatening label would be found to paste on someone like me. My recommendation to President Ali is that if he is going to hold fast to some leaf of truth, then when he speaks of liberty, he should know that it has no limits, not even when having to deal with those declared to be undesirables. Clearly, Dr. Ali harbours ideas in his head about what liberty can only mean and to whom it should apply, in that he alone determines the loyalty and quality of their citizenship. This is the upside-down world of Guyana, where a man who bullies and knocks down those found disagreeable could speak about sweet liberty. When the devil starts quoting scriptures, then it is time for people like me to run for cover.
If President Ali is to be taken seriously, pre-1992 Guyana was a void, utter darkness, thanks to the beastly, diabolically clever PNC. Not a piece of land was given to the indigenous. Perhaps, that is why not a blade of grass has now come into its own with the powers in the PPP Government. For if there was no land given by the PNC of Burnham, it makes sense for not a blade of grass to be the battle cry of Guyanese from coast to coast.
My concern is not from where President Ali gets these, shall I say, mental and historical extravagances, his own irrational exuberances. But how does he still get comfort from them and still deliver them, despite being called out for articulating publicly what has such distance from things truthful, factual? Whatever the personal regard the president has for the fullness of truth that is his business, his constitutional right. But as president he is afforded neither the same luxury nor liberty nor cavalier attitude with truth from this corner.
I can appreciate that the president is excitable and gets carried away by what he imagines to be the splendor of his own voice and its volume. But it is well for his people to remind him that he functions in distinctly defined historical and reality-based contexts, and not as he is prone to conjuring rather irresponsibly. No president should delight in being a boisterous salesman rather than mature statesman. Rhetorical bubbles and baubles are not his stock in trade.
Like slick salesmen, President Ali has grown overly friendly with lip service. Guyana’s burning issues: Democracy, inclusivity, harmony, transparency, accountability are all shells of themselves, thanks to the head salesman. ‘One Guyana’ fragments into a thousand pieces in Mocha, Cotton Tree, Buxton, Linden. Duplicity, double standards, and double dealing are now essentials in the national character.
A peasant is afforded lapses in memory, the lack of deep learning. But even a peasant is not entitled to that discretion forever. When presidents are involved, the standards are tighter, the scrutiny more intense, the territory less lenient. Still, a president could be extended quiet discretion, but on one condition only. What was delivered in public was due to negligence in sticking to the facts, and not some peculiar pathological fascination with manufacturing situations for political mileage.
When truth’s purity is subject to such constant pounding stresses by almost a whole government, then the only liberty that soars is the liberty to dissemble first, distract next, deceive carelessly, and congratulate self for disingenuousness. On any issue. On any occasion. On any moment’s notice before any audience.
I am worried that President Ali has now convinced himself that showmanship is the first essence of true leadership. He may be on to something regarding leadership alone, but not on anything that has to do with the fullness of truth. Truth is boring, not about hysterics. Truth is mature, responsible, faithful, and not about mugging for the microphone and the mob. Truth is painful, when it exposes one’s squeamishness with it. Last, Dr. Excellency: truth is liberating because it frees those the clutches of falsehoods, introduces them to fresh and new horizons. Lessons that never fail. Stick to reality, sir. Abandon fantasy.
