Congratulations are due to Attorney General Anil Nandlall for ‘vehemently’ rejecting Dr. Bertrand Ramcharan’s take of “shades of autocracy” present in Guyana (SN September 12, 2024). Vehemently by the AG represents going the extra mile for the team, staking out ground, no matter how precariously constructed it may be. My concern is that when AG Nandlall builds up this kind of record of defending at all costs, he runs a great risk, as I now gently counsel him. He risks being lumped with that other remarkable character in his party, the one that Guyanese dismiss as a Christmas blow-blow.
Take a word of advice from a simple citizen, AG, don’t do that to self. I doubt that there will be the required kind of listening, any real hearing, by the AG, and I say this based on good grounds. Given his verbal histrionics and his syntactical pole-vaulting, the AG has convinced himself that he is more than Anil Nandlall now. He is Anil Kumble, a worldclass Guyanese spinner bowling from the Robb Street end on the behalf of the PPP Government. Thanks for nothing, Mr. AG; I could do without that tricky wicket he rolls.
As is my wont, I do not read beyond the headlines about what these fine fellows say. Captions are all that is needed, for they tell the story of where they are, what they are about. Defend to the death. Defend in the face of the tide coming into shore with all the force of a tsunami. Say anything, just say something. Just get it in the public record to shore up the flagging spirits of distraught loyalists. Who knows, there may be a fence sitter who tumbles over to the PPP side.
I don’t know, don’t want to know, and don’t care what academic or intellectual or legalistic props the AG used to ‘vehemently’ reject Dr. Ramcharan’s assessment of “shades of autocracy” creeping forward in Guyana. For me, they have all the utility of those too-clever-by-half official statistics: the numbers are sweet. But there are great numbers of Guyanese who can’t buy food basics, so they go hungry. What I do is confront the honorable Attorney General of Guyana, Mr. Mohabir Anil Nandlall with the realities from the school of Guyanese life under the PPP Government (his) and invite him to proceed from there.
On second thoughts, I apologise to AG Nandlall and take back “confront” for that is unbecoming of me and unbecoming to the dignity that is due to him and his venerable office. I humbly approach the AG.
When Guyanese tremble with mortal dread to speak to truth of their observations about, of their experiences under, the PPP Government of President Ali and former President Jagdeo, then he can reject as ‘vehemently’ as such pleases him, but that is autocracy. At least, it cannot be democracy at work, whatever the AG may wish to say. When many in the ranks of his own lofty PPP are fearful of raising their hand and stepping one foot forward to make a public comment about the many things they see going wrong around them, then that is more than “shades of autocracy,” Mr. AG.
I submit that it is tyranny in its infancy. The fear is that a job could be lost, a contract yanked, a cousin, a son, a daughter, or a family relationship shown the door. It is the bitter price that they must pay for one man or woman speaking out of turn. I appeal to the better angels in the AG (if any remain): help me, sir. Help me understand, please, how that fear and that consequence are about the noble underpinnings of democracy, and not the architecture of autocracy. The AG can spark and flash magnificently, but then there are these harsh, unforgiving realities that just won’t go away. They must be faced. If that is the fear from the known in the PPP, then I leave it to the imagination of what is the fate of those connected to the PNC and AFC.
Freedom to think, freedom to speak, should not come at such a cost, Mr. AG. One Guyanese can be waved away, but not a battalion of them, nor a broad segment of them in the national demographic. I have a little present for the AG. Since the PPP returned power, all of four years now, how many of its people have raised a finger to whisper a syllable of disagreement in public?
Thus: I must depart from both Mr. Nandlall and Dr. Ramcharan: forget about democracy. Put away autocracy momentarily. What we have in Guyana is a theocracy: rule by the gods so impeccable and flawless things have been. Well, Mr. AG, there is the record of the PPP since 2020, and it is immaculate, picture perfect and purer than pure. And I haven’t even gone near to the media, or public institutions, both of which have been violated and desecrated by a litany of profanity straight from the PPP. And if I were to take my own vilifications and toss them into the face of AG Nandlall, my chief legal officer, I wonder what he would have to say then.
Sometimes it is better to let some things go, so indefensible, overpowering, they are. Tomorrow will be a better day. And all are seen as being wiser in doing so.
