‘From General Mark Anthony to St Mark Phillips’- Lall

By GHK Lall- I salute Ret’d General Mark Phillips, current Prime Minister, also bearing the burden of acting Guyana president.  Those are heavy badges for one man to fetch.  PM Philips is a man of energy and fleet footed dexterity.  He will manage.  Like he is doing with people who get in trouble with the law on the roads.  His message was as sweet as a descending sledgehammer: don’t call.  Commendations, PM.  A word of help: consider extending that “don’t call me” rebuff to off-road situations.  The PM knows what I mean.

After five years in PPP Govt land, he must have had a long stream of petitioners who got themselves involved in all manner of troubles (crimes) calling for help.  I will not quibble over the five years gone and now lost to what took place then, when calls were made to higher ups by highly-connected citizens in Guyana.  Rather, I praise PM Phillips for staking out a new standard with his “don’t call me” symphony.

For those Guyanese pondering how some people are not charged, some get bail, some are freed on the flimsiest of technicalities, there is an answer to their observation.  Someone made a call to somebody who then extended the telephone magic to some other in some part of Guyana (police, public servant, political partner working undercover).  Whatever the trouble, whatever the holdup, it vanished as if it never existed.

It is called the local out-of-court culture.  A gift from the political people to the people.  The police are swamped, the courts are backlogged.  A solution found for two bottlenecks in one fell stroke.  Be versatile.  Be resourceful.  Be attuned to how the environment works.  Now, if PM Phillips has shared that he has received calls in the past, what does that say?  It says that he cannot be the only PPP Govt powerhouse who has been called to be a fixer, a problem solver, an arranger, and an orchestrator.

Now, as PM Phillips knows all too well, I am not a citizen who sees the worse in politicians.  I see them as helpful, seeking to bridge the great divide between what is lawful and what is lawlessness, what is just versus, what is unjust.  Who can argue with that, or turn their backs when such developments come before them?  Of course, it is their version (politicians’) of what should be and what should not be.

C’mon, how would it look to leave a friend, a family member, a proven loyalist to go down on his own, when there is all this power that is in hand, and going to waste?  To parrot the English, that just would not do.  Bad form all around.  Utterly ghastly.  For all these reasons, it is refreshing to hear Senior Senator Mark Anthony (Phillips) break formation and send out his all-points bulletin: Don’t call me.

He could gain a following.  Even put himself in the running to be president, and be done with the albatross around his neck that wears a brand marked acting.  PM Phillips, this new Guyanese nobleman, one rising straight out of the dungeons of the PPP, has started something that could begin a craze.  He is one of 36 in the house.

Here is a grand, unprecedented opportunity for the other 35 to straighten up, face their fellows and say quietly or loudly, but all the time truthfully: don’t call me.  I always thought that the man Mark Anthony Phillips had the stuff of the saintly in him.  Be careful to note the difference: the man is emphasized.  The political figure may have his own ideas, be forced to deal with his own trials, and then make his own judgement calls.  Well, he just did, didn’t he?  What is there not to understand with don’t call me?

In going about my business, it must be said that this Guyana is a the strangest of strange places.  Imagine this development that was five unending years in the making.  A son of this soil travels the hard road that stretches interminably from General Mark Anthony to Guyana’s glorious St Mark and his resplendent new Gospel of “Don’t call me.”  He thrilled in the role of Good Samaritan (and who is my neighbor in need?) for half of a decade, only to transform now into a good citizen, who aspires to be a great example.

Yes, Prime Minister Phillips.  I am as one with him in don’t call me.  Guyana is now on the path to the democracy of which John Hess boasted to the world about, and respect for the rule of law, which that great son of the universe, Mohabir Anil Nandlall usually have so much to say.  When this is digested, don’t call me, either.  Not in dem dutty storeee dat belang to de PPP.