By GHK Lall- People say Jagdeo is a horror show repeated every Thursday afternoon. I am pleased they gifted him the other five days. They say he’s a monster. I say have a heart. Find the milk of human kindness for brother Bharrat. I have long had his measure, taken his blood pressure. He’s in dire need of sympathy. More than sympathy, he needs a hand, an ally who sees him differently. I voted myself.
Straight up: Bharrat Jagdeo suffers from many maladies, all striking at once. WIN is now number one. They all haunt him. His Thursday afternoon press exhibitions bare the torments of a man wounded by his own hand. Thursday functions as his pacifier. Having bawled and cried all week, he gets to sink his teeth into rubber on Thursdays. Instead of picking him apart and beating him with a cricket bat, I try another tack -a drink of water.
Like Sisyphus, Jagdeo rolled his boulder up the crags, only for it to crash down on his head. Spare him, fellow Guyanese. Please, go easy on him. Remember: those whom the gods wish to destroy they drive into fits of frenzy, paroxysms of hysteria, and the glaze-eyed, lip-twisted, fist-fanged state of someone on his last lap, his pulverized, convulsive end. Mohamed drives him mad.
Jagdeo may appear to be the epitome of the angry. He is afraid (WIN), dread the PNC. I see a man who is sickly. He has lived hard, turned to putty. There is a price for such excesses. Forget Skeldon and Wales, sugar and gas-to-shore, and whatever lies beyond. Think of a human being torn and tattered, twisted and terrified, and that’s Jagdeo. Not Jagdeo the leader that was. But Jagdeo the man that is. How can I kick a fellow man when he’s down? When Trump distances from foreign elections? Why should I push anybody’s bandwagon, when I have my own?
For those misreading my empathy for Friar Bharrat, of this be aware. I have crossed many rivers in my time, and the map that points in the direction of Freedom House, Congress Place, or WIN Enclosure doesn’t have my name or footprint on it. I say look at this former head of state, a man who for all intents and purposes has lost his own head.
Unfortunately, his soul departed long before, which is why his head is in such a dilapidated state. I had warned him before: where there is no soul, all the brains and brawn, all the bravado and bawling, are but for naught. Means absolutely nothing. The more he screams, the more of a demented spectacle he becomes, like the agony of King Lear tasting the teeth of the wind on that lonely moor.
Jagdeo once comforted himself with his phalanx of soldiers in close attendance, keeping closer watch. Another valium, chief? Of what help are they, can they be, when the danger to Jagdeo is not from the outside, but of the terrors that create such storms on the inside of his head. I exhorted this brother; took a knee for this leader.
Try the straight path, give the narrow road a try, a genuine one. For my troubles, I got the PPP’s giftwrapped Live in Guyana, and his henchmen in the Office of the President, Office of the Prime Minister, and whichever offices are used for sinister objectives in this country. I persevere, for what kind of man would I be, if I can’t be happy to be tested in the ways of adversity?
It is why I can read of the vice president’s and general secretary’s Thursday afternoon cockfight, bullfight, and catfight all swizzled into a raucous blend, and take comfort myself that one day this frail man, would learn. WIN frightens him. It’s obvious. It is a terrible thing to watch someone decay without his boots on the right feet. It has been part of my grace to watch the life ebb out of noble, righteous people. In Guyana, there is now a duty more demanding: to watch a man disintegrate in slow motion.
The most testing part of that unfolding pyre is that in Jagdeo’s case, it is a product of his tireless predisposition towards self-destruction. Others gleefully mock him. I discern a citizen that is sick; one needing urgent help. Jagdeo is no longer responsible for his actions, and I appeal to fellow Guyanese to factor that into their considerations. He is in a bind, so be kind. In the language of the poor on the raw streets, Jagdeo is faking it to make it. The sum of the Bharrat Jagdeo of today is of someone who has nothing to his name, nothing to stand on, none going for him. I break ranks and do.
