GHK Lall- When all the communities large and small have been visited, when all the flourishing speeches have been made, when all the sparkling political commercials broadcast, the September 1 elections come down to the simple. The simple folk will be the ones making those not-so-simple decisions that have such far-reaching effects. I reduce the elections to a handful of questions from the commonfolk. They have a prior high hurdle to overcome. The pull of race to deal with, loyalty to the tribal to manage. I proceed.
The September elections are not so much about democracy, who tried to rig the last elections, the quality of leadership experienced since. Those matter to some, but not as much to many more. Consider this: see any political group or leading campaigner visiting Bel Air Park, D’Aguiar Park, or Republic Park?
Voters are there; but the great mass of them are elsewhere. Selling grounds, battlegrounds, and proving grounds are all over, but not there. So, now it is time to take a fine look and touch at the thoughts, the questions, contemplated, weighing heavily on the ordinary lunch bucket man, shorthanded mother, unsettled youth.
First, with all this money, these great, big, billions (whatever those mean) being written, mentioned, flashing before the eyes, how come they all slipped past me and my family? The billions just didn’t slip past, they raced past, while giving the widest berth to my humble lot number. Why was that so, had to be so, when a family or two got a hog and a cow? And a fleet of SUVs, jewelry to choke an anaconda, and the arrogance that goes along with such prizes.
Second, the little people are being flooded with rich promises. Who will do what and how much, and how quickly and broadly, are all lighting up the headlines, making the rounds? Lovely and inspiring, unquestionably. Yes, but that is about tomorrow, next year, and beyond. But what about the last few years? How is it that nobody remembered that I existed, didn’t care how I existed, but now know how to give me a better existence?
Pain-filled questions such as these are not debated at the Harvard Business School. This is what stirs and emerges from the neglected and abandoned, the tricked and taken for granted, those left to eke out whatever they could from their gnawing, dreaded, empty days. Days that repeated themselves with greater difficulty, extended regularity.
Third, there is this anxiety-laden, soul-distressing, mentally tormenting mother of all hard questions. Who to trust? Trust with their rich, creamy, promises? Why trust at all, when so much was wasted, with so little left? Why set myself up for another heartbreak, another batch of years that make me live with regret that will neither ease nor leave?
I readily admit that I could be expecting too much, burdening too heavily, the man in the street and the woman watching her bare floors, barer cupboards. But, then again, I may not even be coming close to appreciating the magnitude of their hurts, their disgusts, their fears. Certainly, they see all the building out, building up, and related busyness.
But, if so much money for that, how come only one or two halfpenny for me? Things so tough, that I had to tek shame out of my face and tek it. But ah tek note also. The mass of the people in Guyana heard about this magical development called oil. They see how much difference it made for a few, and they have a question that nags: wait maan, dis oil biased tuh? Dis ile gat suh much hatred fuh pooh peeple?
It is highly likely that these are not the types of questions that the enlightened and emboldened consider perspicacious or penetrating. But for the man and woman who are without, who know what it is to be left out, they are existential. They are immediate. And they are mind-bending and crippling. May not matter much at higher elevations, but this is where the September 1 elections terminate and culminate. Nobody at the top can cry poverty these days, but there are those living in it. September 1 is the referendum. It is the conundrum also. Pardon is asked, but I must be raw, for that’s Guyanese reality.
Yuh waan put bak dem kinda maan bak in deh again? And, from the other side of the voter divide: how much mo rope yuh gun give dem teef maan and baad maan fuh hang yuh? Complexion deleted in both instances. After all the theory, ideology, money wizardry, leadership trickery, and political strategy, I present the substance and soul of September 1. The issue before is what will triumph: one’s own impoverished state, or the greater tribal state? Here is a clue: the desperation, shrillness, of some confirm.
