By GHK Lall
It is Easter Sunday, a day abundant with glorious promise, rich hopes that inspire. It is more than a day, more a season, a way of life that is struggled to be imitated, obeying sacred commandments, fulfilling expectations that I believe are from above. Many Guyanese are of a similarly special spirit that surrounds, that uplifts, even in the darkest of times, and the times are dark indeed, despite the lush loveliness of this lost land.
It is said and believed by a billion globally that Almighty God loved the world so much that He gave His Only Begotten Son as a pure sacrifice to save those who grasp for the essence of this divine presence and force. When I reflect on all this, the thought comes that God forgot Guyana; and most unfortunately, this thought comes more often these days. I ask myself if it is that since God somehow forgot the little space on the map that is Guyana, if he didn’t compensate by giving us something else. That is, he gave us oil, and before that gold and all those other glittering creations of his hand.
For when the Good Lord in his infinite wisdom rewarded us, by way of leveling action, with oil and gas and gold, the light of the Chosen One went out of this country. For what we have, what we now live with is this darkness, the expanding darkness of devils roaming at will in this society. There is not one, but numerous men of the bright gaudy pinstripe of Judas Iscariot. They flash with the thieveries that they extract from the poor and weak and gullible in Guyana. Like Judas, those in charge of the funds of Guyana, that could do so much good from that oil and the rest of our celestial blessings, steal from its purse. Like Judas, his equivalents in Guyana make pretty, defiant, and indignant speeches about what could be done, what is being done, with the monies collected, and this while they are cheating and lying and tricking those listening, those in huddled companionship with the one perfumed by Mary.
The oil has done that; already it is of a blessing converted into a curse. Some gift God gave Guyana! As I say this, my hope is that I have not offended anyone, who share a likeminded spirituality, a deeper sensitivity. God gave us oil, and he gave us these leaders. On this Easter Sunday, I think of them, and I remember the scribes and Pharisees, the learned men and powerful authorities of the Savior’s Day, those who stood in his way. Oh! There were fine specimens of humanity with their finer chatter and the finest of apparels. Such are the camouflages of blemished and unclean men who fear the untarnished and purity of truth and light. The scribes and Pharisees (and they are not in our places of worship, or largely of the cloth) always have an argument, never are short of a moment when they rise up to challenge and combat in rage. This is while they mislead man and mule, and abuse and misuse the great duties placed in their hands. They conspire and plot on how to confront and suppress those who follow the man from Galilee (and others of believed divine origins), who make clear what they stand for, against that which they can never condone, nor conceal, nor pretend does not exist.
There is neither Sabbath nor Easter nor peace for these wretched souls, the so-called leaders of Guyana’s lowly and downtrodden, and those, oh! So afflicted. Those who harbor hopes, those wishing for a miracle, those looking for a sign of something sincere to come from the hearts and lips of those who lie and lie, and then lie some more. In Jerusalem two thousand years ago, the big ones were of the belief that they had finally rid themselves of a troublemaker possessing untold menace to their places of honor. How wrong they were, how rich history has proven to be in its lengthy confirmation of the spark of Gethsemane and Calvary and Golgotha that cannot be snuffed, never will be.
Back then, they feared the Word. Here in Guyana, the sprawling sum of the secular Sanhedrin fear a word. Any one word is enough to drive them to madness, to galvanize them to whip up a crowd that is nothing but an orchestrated mob. The carpenter’s son agonized in his hour of ordeal, and in so doing left a blueprint of how those believe must be. Not to fear. Not to wilt. Never to fade, despite our frailness before the forces arrayed against, before the might of the established state that cannot tolerate truth, whose leaders and people are ill-equipped to deal with any kind of light.
Their own dirty hands condemn them, the blood of the innocent stain them. Just before Holy Thursday last week, the tidings came. A young Christian follower and believer, Levoy Taljit, is now officially believed to have been murdered. It took nine endless years for that inglorious ray to appear. But it did. It is the handiwork of those who prefer to deal with the devil and set free the Barabbas(es) present in Guyana. Such is the intellectual authorship, the official sponsorship, that conceal heinous crimes for so long. If ever there was an Easter gift, as mixed as it is, for Levoy Taljit is now declared dead in the worst of circumstances, this is one. There is still another that languishes from what I believe is a similar strain of Guyanese orchestrated evil. Her name is Alicia Foster, and she too was a child of the Redeemer, a victim of bloody evils. Those take the form of our own cunning Caiaphas(es), and godly they don’t even pretend to be. We have, too, a Pontius Pilate who spar with what truth is. A leader lost and living lies. The Risen One lives, believing Guyanese must rise like him, live with him.
