By GHK Lall- Wait a minute, folks! All slowdown, please. Come to a full stop. Mr. Azruddin Mohamed in the same breath as Cheddi Jagan? Put on the same pedestal as Mandela, Mahatma, and Walesa? Again: Jagan, Burnham, and Rodney? This is serious stuff. I must be hallucinating. Maybe, I departed these shores and didn’t know it. Everyone needs to sober up. Kindly stop the kidding around. Immediately.
For the record, I admit to guarded recognition of Mr. Mohamed’s efforts in the political wars of Guyana. He has stepped up. Fights above his weight. Unexpected, but well-received. He has been thrown to the carpet. Then rolled in it. Now, the strings are being tightened. There is such a thing, fellow Guyanese, called the past. He tries to dodge it. The shadows stick. Some substance is pasted. Maneuvering space is limited for him. He had good friends who now damn him as a bad friend. Life; get used to it. So, before a halo is garlanded around his head (maybe more), I do my duty to the people.
Mandela’s crime was being a freedom fighter. May have had others, but his enemies couldn’t find them. Cheddi Jagan’s blasphemy was being a communist, Marxist, a nationalist. One might be pardonable, not three. Burnham was a man who reeled people in, then wrappred a rope around their necks. His crime was doing that to America. Down goes (went) Burnham. I am concerned. When people start mentioning Mr. Azruddin Mohamed’s name alongside that singular pantheon of heroic political figures, the unthinkable could follow. Get ready, people. Link the Guyana Mohamed to the other Mohamed, the immortal Mohamed, from the blossoms of Arabia. Yes, it has those. The challenge is to find them. And, the kind of perfumes they give off.
Look as a believer, though definitely not devout by any measurement, there’s limited familiarity with some mysteries God. From the Holy Bible (it’s still so to me [plus those two commandments -thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill]), there are passages that are revelations. They repeatedly detail how God recruited the wretched, the despised, the crooked, and the unredeemed. Then put them to do his works of liberation.
Jacob cheated his elder brother out of his inheritance. Moses was a murderer. Saul before he was converted to St Paul was a terrorist with a flamethrower. King David was an adulterer (remember Bathsheba). He compounded that crime by arranging the killing off of Uriah, the lady’s husband. Uriah was also one of his topnotch war generals. Many may ask if I am making a case for Mr. Azruddin Mohamed, as one converted to do the saving work of God, to fulfill his will. To be high-beam clear: I make no such representation for Mr. Mohamed. I do not know the litany of his crimes. I have heard. Have watched. Have absorbed lessons from both. He has an obligation to make his peace with all Guyanese. Most vitally, with all their institutions.
Get this. There’s no issue with anyone holding Pres Ali at heroic heights. He must be due it, from works that recommend him. The same goes for those who elevate to the highest peaks, First Vice President Phillips, Second Vice President Jagdeo, and Guyana’s chief legal agent, Mr. Nandlall. Each must gain that elevation the old-fashioned way: they earned it. Honestly. Honourably. The same goes for those not mentioned; in government, in the opposition.
Jagan, Burnham, and Rodney deserve the praises and respect given to them. Maybe not all of the breathless encomia, but definitely more than a few. Mr. Azruddin Mohamed’s journey has just begun. The road is rocky. His trials are many. I believe that he has contributed in no small way to what dogs him now, have become haunting, inseparable shadows. The air around him must be sanitized. His abscesses drained and healed. Then, he must endure his baptism of fire. When purified, then a thought may be spared about if he belongs in the halls of Guyanese luminaries. Or not at all.
