By GHK Lall- I think the PPP Government is suffering from the virus of wrong priorities. Or it is weighed down by mixed-minds. A strong case could be made for both being in operation. A couple of fact patterns are presented, with locals left with the liberty to make up their own minds.
There is Ms. Melissa Atwell better known as Melly Mel, going about her business in Brooklyn. Some in the PPP say that it is opposition business, which means another three-letter identifier. Then, there is a man by the name of Nicolas Maduro hanging around right outside the gates.
Let’s maintain courtesies and refrain from using a word like barbarian. Who and what does the PPP Government makes its priority, Nicolas Maduro or Melly Mel? Register at the visitors’ desk in Louisiana detention center, and there is the answer, all the proof needed.
It should be obvious by now that the PPP Government has more than its share of shortsighted and shortchanged, and in too many departments. Jesus Christ! There is the existential threat of Maduro and his posse of excited caballeros, who fancy themselves to be some combination of the reincarnation of Hernan Cortez, Frankie Pizarro, and later on, Simon Bolivar. Maybe even Che Guevara, truth be told.
The irony of the latter should not be lost on knowledgeable Guyanese. He was once a hero to the PPP; perhaps, still secretly is, despite all the capitalist odors and American ardors. But there is Maduro virtually ignored, until he comes up with some inspired new idea and movement to rattle the cage of Irfaan Ali and send him scurrying to Duke Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
To my fellow Guyanese, this is what I say: Irfaan Ali and B. Jagdeo (and Anil Nandlall) should be always keeping their eyes glued on Nicolas Maduro, and shadow his every development with the aid of American eyes in the sky. Who is Melly Mel (with proper respect, naturally) that she should command the interest, attention, and energies of the likes of Ali, Jagdeo, and Nandlall?
Who is Melly Mel when there is a Maduro always looking for ways to keeping them off balance and hurling the worst insults imaginable at Guyana’s beloved and universally adored Mohamed Irfaan Ali, the nation’s president, no less?
Indeed, Ms. Mel has scorched the PPP Government and a select few in it with their greatest vulnerability, their public mental disease shame. Corruption. A wise man corrected me -that’s too fancy. Teefin, wholesale teefin, and nonstop teefin captures the rawness and real substance of the PPP Government’s deep-seated disease.
Now Melly Mel trumps (no reference to anybody) Nico Maduro in the range of threats, through the lethality of her continued freedom. Incredibly, Senor Maduro is treated to the indignity of being pushed to the backburner of PPP Government’s priorities. Of course, there is always America to run interference.
Be careful! That is until it finds some new oil toy to play with somewhere else. In conclusion of this first part, there is the self-destructive in Maduro left to his own devices and only remembered when he gets out of hand. Meanwhile, Ms. Melly Mel is considered by government strongmen to be their Number One Enemy and priority.
Like the French of yore, the Guyana Government succeeded in making her into the local Joan of Arc. Once again, I share this caution: be careful! It is unwise to be running around creating unnecessary enemies, making them into potential international heroines.
Th other issue that gave me pause was this ‘One Guyana’ passport development. Does Irfaan Ali (PhD and all) truly believe that his new national motto ‘One Guyana’ has across-the-board reception? And if it doesn’t, that he is going to force it into being?
When the minds inside of the PPP Government are so preoccupied with brainwashing Guyanese into what it is not, then Exxon and Maduro and even Suriname are free to run their rackets and make rings around this country.
To be Sahara sunlight clear, Guyana is not one of anything, and Guyanese are not as one on anything. Here are a few test cases, straight out of the local laboratory.
Mention PPP in some quarters, and where is One Guyana? Say PNC in other spaces, and is there anything that resembles One Guyana? I go further. Holler Exxon and how about the One Guyana so vital to confront that plunderer? I proceed farther up the road.
Put the names Venezuela and Maduro on the biggest billboards across this country, and where in hell is that slippery character One Guyana? I assert that many of the prosperous in the PPP are not going to sacrifice their sons and daughters in the name of loyal patriotism.
Not when they are in the middle of the money machine. There is outsourcing and there are also paid proxies. From rent-a-citizen to rent-a-soldier to rent-a-border defender, cheap cannon fodder.
To Excellency Ali, I humbly offer this little something. When Guyanese from all walks believe that they truly belong, then One Guyana doesn’t have to be sold to them, or stuffed down their gullets. When they feel a sense of belonging, of owning their present and a piece of their future, then they embrace One Guyana.
Until then One Guyana is only for one people and one set of cronies. The evidence, Excellency Ali, is all around. One Guyana is more than about a passport. One Guyana on a passport is of a national perversity that profanes the intellect and psyche, Mr. President. One Guyana is a joke, a fraud, a national deception all rolled into, believe it or not, one.
