Black faces in the Ali administration are disdained as house servants

Dear Editor,

I read the media coverage of President Ali speaking of this country’s unity in the face of its border controversy, and in the glow of the ICJ’s ruling about jurisdiction. On this business about unity, the president does not glow, but waxes rather dully, because he comes across as a greater pretender than that all-time Great Pretender, Tony Williams, and his famed Platters.

The first thing that His Excellency needs to be real on in this country is that there is little unity. Political fallout aside, he must be frank and admit to that truth, which he may not be capable of, given his own strengths and predispositions. Cotton Tree revealed the raging disunity and punctured all related hypocrisies and deceptions regarding any spurious claims about unity. To be blunt, presidential self-congratulation about unity over border controversy is a bag of garbage and the president knows this all too well to be allowed to get away with that patented piece of propaganda. It has no foundation, no merit, no standing, no following.

This has long historical and cultural roots, and is also directly due to the still festering elections and the hatreds and toxins that flourished to such a widespread extent from that cultural depravity. Those are not going anywhere, merely intensifying in more muted fashion and underground. The president may be happy to fool himself, which is his business. But he is respectfully advised to cease and desist from putting that nonsense out before the sharply divided public of Guyana.

Further, the cause of unity, and the claim of unity, was further weakened and dampened by the now longstanding treatment of so-called ‘political appointees’ in high pitched elections aftermaths. This last was incontestably the worst pre- and post-elections sicknesses and madness that have visited here in a long time. It does not matter that ‘political appointees’ are subject to such insulting dispatch after all elections. What matters is that the handling of this last batch has angered and been leveraged for gain, and which is freshest in the mind. It matters little who did what to whom before. This is what counts today, when interpreted as racial firings and believed ethnic cleansing. Under no circumstances were the opposition and its supporters going to allow the PPP government to escape unscathed with what it had done. From my perspective, some of the firings were justified (but not all); while I happen to endorse some of the opposition’s positions that racial purging occurred. This is the poisoned chalice of Guyana that no group seems ready to detoxify, but relish privately, while pretending to be otherwise in the public space. All of this is rather transparent and contributes heavily not to unity but deep disunity.

I go further still and point to the disparaging treatment meted out by the new PPP government to the new opposition in a number of areas. Though the opposition’s machinations have contributed to numerous questions and concerns about its presence, its authenticity, and its purpose, the group did garner an almost equal share of the votes tendered in the last Dantean electoral nightmare, and for that alone it is due recognition and not condemnation to the margins. I say this even as I ponder over its silence and impotence on several burning issues of the Guyanese day, and its present viability. Notwithstanding all of this, its supporters look on and listen and seethe as to how not so much as the opposition is treated as a political group, but how they (the voter and citizen) are disrespected and dismissed. This does not lend itself to much of anything related to the unity of which President Ali speaks so blandly about. That is, unless he speaks of the village along the East Coast.

While the Ali Administration can boast a bunch of black names and faces newly put in positions, or recalled, the fact is that they are disdained as house servants or worse still Uncle something. This means nothing and does not qualify for inclusion in the unity column. As much as I would like to join with His Excellency in saying that there is unity in this society, most regrettably, I can’t.

Yours truly,
GHK Lall