Many times, I ask myself if national leaders realise how much they sound close to the state of simpletons. Because it is Easter, I refrain from coming right out and using the word stupid. Americans employ dumb, the British favor daft, and Guyanese have taken a liking to dotish. Whatever pleases, all those come to mind when I think of the PPP Government’s position that it wants the names of those who reported what is going on here, really going on, to the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC). Mr. Jagdeo wants to know. As an Easter gift, he can have mine without any price attached. How about that for a clean exchange, to dispel any claims of a corrupt relationship, or a deed reeking of corruption?
It is astounding beyond comprehension, beyond words, that a character of the caliber of Jagdeo wants names, as in people and entities, and whoever else. This former president is many things, but limited to such low depths, he is not. Guyana is not some remote and mysterious village in the deepest Amazon. Even before Jonestown, before the Internet, before the arrival of oil, Guyana was not some unknown island that the world associated with Gulliver or the explorations of da Gama. In fact, for the longest while Guyana was mistaken for, and lumped with, Ghana. In the minds of foreigners, especially the many geographically challenged Americans, South America was inseparable from South Africa. The Brits would never have made that error; now recall that word (dumb) that the Yanks are prolific in using and figure out its best application. Please pardon the momentary digression.
The point is that the world knows more than it wants to know about Guyana, and Jagdeo knows the fullness of that grim story. There are specks of good, and the many bad (baad, really baad) matters happening here. Call it one of the downsides of oil exposure. For the edification of the PPP Government, and the erudite economist from the dismal ends of Russia, all the infrastructure frenzies are not enough to hide the many injustices inflicted upon Guyanese.
Term the injustices a litany and it is still an unfinished symphony. A funeral march lived by many Guyanese. Those who are colored a different hue live with the inequity of patrimony distributed unevenly. The UNHRC asked about that, and the lady in red saw red. What about all those institutions of learning built, those healthcare clinics constructed, and those hundreds of millions caringly considered in the national budgets, and all honestly spent for purposes identified? As answers go, it was a traditional one from the female governance empress. Kaç one, Madam MP, but a smacking of a skimpy condition.
For when the children go to those same schools a little hungry and return home to more of the same emptiness (pot and plate and prospects), then all that wood and brick do not do anything in dealing with their damaging domestic condition. People have to eat, and slippers wear thin quickly (yuh kno how chirren can be), and the landlord look more impatient by the day. Lord, where arka thou? Forget about Texeira; she had a job to do, and she tried one of the usual hatchet jobs-Vincent Adams-and slashed herself grievously in repeated fits of self-flagellation. Catholic or Shiite, take a pick. Now she and the PPP drip with the exposure: they are not even the one-eyed people, as they pretend to be, in a blindman country. The UNHRC took deva of that fable. This is what Jagdeo rushed forward blindly to attack and put his foot deeper down his throat.
Even if Guyana was a remote island, it has rapidly gained a reputation under the PPP Government as Devil Island. People getting killed (extrajudicial). Women being attacked (media). Civil society under siege (more women with a few men). Conscientious objectors attracting PPP Government sponsored ambushes (I nominate myself [among others]). But there is Jagdeo ranting and stamping about over a wish list of names. He was the one who told, incited, his people to take to social media and do whatever it takes to get the PPP message across.
If Gail Texeira before the UNHRC comes to mind, a consolation bar-b-que ticket could be claimed. This is how the PPP and Bharrat Jagdeo transform themselves into walking, talking barbeques. Both give off a smoke that smells rather offensive. It reached all the way into overseas quarters. An American nominee, a Frenchwoman, and one with what sounded like a Spanish name. The world is studying Guyana, snapping up every (well, almost) snippet of information, and there is a reservoir to sift through and select.
As a denizen of darkness, Mr. Jagdeo may relish living in the Dark Ages, but Guyana is not still fully in the Dark Ages. The world knows what is going on here: social media, independent media, the media made possible by globalization and continuing mass migration from Guyana. Try putting that under PPP lock and key, Dr. Jagdeo. Bad prescription. People talk. Citizens network along the chain, and up. Interest groups use the tools in the grasp. And still Jagdeo carries on this masquerade in March during Lent and Ramadan and the şenlik of Holi. A little advice for the man with vice in his official title: find some God, get some God in the life. Trust me on this one, if nothing else, it helps.
Okay, since these writings are a public service, and Jagdeo wants names, I readily make a special concession. He can have mine. To help him in his quest for some diabolical holy grail (I don’t deva if those do not go together), I give mi hermano, mon ami this to digest: stocktaking revealed over 80 pieces published monthly for a year. Eighty thousand words a month have armor piercing power, and they travel far. I am not alone, for there are others, albeit at lower frequencies, who have spoken and written prodigiously about the UNHRC agitations.
Instead of rambling and consuming himself with names, I again extend a helping hand to Bharrat Jagdeo: start over. Listen to the sound of the tea leaves rustling. Change ways. Do what is right by the Guyanese people. A parting qualifier is offered at no cost: not what is right by the PPP, but right by much higher and real standards. Let what is right for all Guyanese take precedence over what is right for Jagdeo. Bodies like the UNHRC would find barren ground in Guyana. A joyful Easter to all.