Want to make a lawless dictatorship pause, reexamine itself? Want to make the unclean in that lawless dictatorship study their hands, search for bloodstains? And the heavy smell of ill-gotten money? Want to make an omnipotent government rock back on its heels, and then roll to evade what’s coming? Assemble on the streets. Raise a picket. Share a message. Rejecting comes first. Shivering follows. The longer those silent voices and endlessly tramping feet make their rounds, generate their own electricity (and heat). Street protest is simultaneously an accuser, has the potential to be a gamechanger, maybe even a terminator.
Street protest is not sexy, but it has compelling power. Cameras arrive. Microphones are activated. Rubberneckers slowdown. Moral supporters nod their secret approval. Street protest isn’t a fighting force in the regular definitions. Street protest doesn’t have a single weapon. But it is an occupation force possessing all the power of an army. And with an armor and uniform all of its own. Injustice highlighted in the brightest colors (including red). Criminality and skullduggery impaled and held aloft. For the world to see. It begins with the U.S. government’s chief representative in Guyana. Excellency Nicole D. Theriot is from Louisiana. She should know about corruption, and Louisiana’s history with that monster, starting with one Huey P. Long. She didn’t have to come to Guyana to learn about corruption. But PPP Guyana must have taught her a volume about corruption and injustice, enough for her to take back to the bayou or send to the swamps of Washington. From Americans to Europeans, they all recognize the latent energy, the power to upend dictatorships. Be they benevolent or malevolent.
Street protest strains the patience (of crooked governments). Street protest highlights the deceits and hypocrisies of corrupt leaders (or those that condone corruption). Street protest pushes governments and leaders with a bundle of crimes to hide. To overreact. How many handcuffs does the government have? Would the PPP Govt convert the National Park or the National Stadium to an open-air jail? Street protest done properly, meaning peacefully and uninterruptedly, aids in answering those questions.
Martin Luther King had a strategy. Flood the street and flood the jail. Go ahead, Dr. Commissioner, lockup everybody. The courts will then have to get into the act. No attorneys. No applications for bail. Neither interest nor wish for liberty, for that is back to the old PPP slavery. In sum: jail, no bail. The PPP itself had set a precedent. Recall the orchestrated resistance to No Parking and Paid Parking around a decade back. Recall the power of the people and power to the people. It is not Black Power. It the power of the Guyanese people. From law enforcement chains attached to the wrists to human chains that reveal to the world the ugly story of the real Guyana. The Guyana beneath the tall buildings and refreshed roads. Oh, and Guyanese excluded and hurt, despite the magnetic musk of nature’s oil.
Do Guyanese have it in them? To wrest their destiny from the hands of a lawless dictatorship, a criminal government? Their choice is to live like dogs on four feet, or live like upright men and women on two feet. The four-footed choice invites unscrupulous and duplicitous men to take a ride on their backs. The offer is never refused, never wasted. Repeat invitations receive the same energetic receptions.
Guyanese may have what it takes to bare their hunger and anger, their poverty and calamity, on the street. But do their leaders have the wisdom to marshal that package of resentment and make the best use of it? Being in jail doesn’t help. Sticking behind the podium has its uses, but doesn’t reward with the returns of the street. Maximizing Facebook is powerful, but there’s no power that can compete with the power of the people on the street.
Powerful governments tremble. Powerful governments that are infested with corruption, noted for their kleptocrats and plutocrats, tremble still more. Like a man with a severe fever. Guyanese are at this crossroad: a stare down, or a backdown. Street protest accuses, can be a showstopper, also a terminator. Geography provides the best proof.
