By GHK Lall- A handful of people owns/controls half the country. Rings loudly; with a bigger fraction involved. The “machinery of power” employed to discredit and damage adversaries. If that does seem familiar, something that is known and close, then here is a better one. National sovereignty and the all-out defense of territory, the sacred motherland. Have those not been used to recommend men who hold themselves out as virtuous patriots?
To camouflage their abject cowardice as they crumble and/or sell themselves in the face of rapacious assaults on the national heritage? And has not bought-and-paid-for political advertisements been marketing ‘excellence in leadership’ when the decay is on the surface, and blindly so? From scandal to sellout, from seeking to snuff out dissenting voices and sidelining the weak, all of this encircles in an iron grip, doesn’t let go. There is change.
In just happened in Hungary, with a man aptly named Hungary taking the reins. After 16 years, Victor Orban has bowed before defeat. Graciously, I will give him. Peter Magyar came from within his circle and deep in the folds. An attorney and an economist; a man of credentials, he is. A learned man, undoubtedly. But also, a man who learned about what is not written in books, nor given enough time in lecture halls and classrooms.
About how some men become when they ascend to the corridors of power, and the beasts they transform into before their own people. Towering over them. Knocking them around. Clawing at them. Consuming their existence. Draining and wasting their assets; decimating their hopes; adding to the despair of the common man.
It was Orban’s kind of Hungary for 16 years. Look who held him high. Listen to those who gave him backing. What else did the world, do Guyanese, wish to hear, want to know? Enough is said, because all that is needed to be known is there. They love Guyana, and those who could be his twins here. The bond is that tight. The parallels are that close; the lines of separation almost invisible. I heard, and Guyanese must have too: “special relationship.”
Do I want a special friendship with racists and demagogues? I’d rather not. Do I seek a hand extended in partnership, but which traps in a vise, so that usurpers can trick and then cart away my birthright? I don’t think so. Not now. Not ever. The thought is that there are other citizens in this gorgeously rich Republic, who think similarly, probably more passionately about these points tabled. Many more than can do much more than this solitary echo projects.
Have objections, and dare to voice them openly, then be ready. Guyana is Hungary, and Hungary under Orban was Guyana. The swordsmen and spearmen came out to scythe down those who say or write that this wrong, has unacceptable odors, and shouldn’t be so. From the pain of doing so, comes heavy grinding from the “machinery of power.” Where the assets of the Guyanese people are turned against them, used to brutalize them. What is different in Guyana from what was done in Hungary?
From the financial scandals involving millions and billions, to the moral scandals that devastate young and old ones, besmirch the reputation of a nation. When the politically ignorant in Guyana can say contemptuously and casually that principles and standards shouldn’t matter, dismiss the place of such, then what results? In energy. In awards. In secrets. In coverups. In denials, deceptions, and deflections. And, in attacks on the few who say that’s not right. How long can a population, any with a core of thoughtful people trying their best to live clean and straight, condone such governance, such leadership?
There are signs of this bubbling underneath in Guyana. But there aren’t enough committed bodies and minds yet. A fresh face and new voice that inspires trust is the key. Hungarians found theirs. Guyanese weigh, listen, search.
