OPINION: No longer about the lesser of two evils, just the plainness of two evils

Last Updated on Sunday, 1 December 2019, 10:29 by Writer

by GHK Lall

The opposition should be delighted with where it is positioned today, how it is well-poised for that decisive burst of perverse brilliance as the electoral finish line appears in sight. I would, too, given the circumstances of the competition, in view of its twisting and turning airlessness existence.

For, as I see things, the opposition can conserve precious energy and resources, as the straightaway and last quarter pole looms. It can leave the mud, slime, and stench to its erudite opponents. Look at that gathering that is the counterparty: there is neither prudence nor wisdom in their dealings with one another. And since it is publicly and glaringly so, then how can it be believed to have the skills and talents to deal with the delicate and vital matters of others? Such as the well-being of the whole state? When the acumen of political neurosurgeons is demanded, there are only pathetic men with pickaxes, who cast around with high ambition and low visions, while obsessed with the paramountcy of self and group first.

The admissions of their own voice and stated self-serving interests condemn them. What has been exhibited is the lean and hungry smallness of men, who can only be rightly labeled as dangerous. I believe so of them. To themselves. To their partners. To their followers. To this country. For when the PNC and AFC cannot get their vulgar act together, settle their differences in private with dignity and honor, then they just may not be fit to be entrusted with the reins of office, with the stewardship of the oil apparatus. Of anything. For to be brutally candid, take away the oil, take away the gold and timber and fisheries, and whatever else is there, and they may not be fit and proper people to be the political captains of what is left. Indeed, it looks that bad to me, reeks of that indecency.

Still, in this darkest of electoral and leadership hours, there is a ray of brightness. It gleams with the personally pleasing. It is of what is so comprehensively and enduringly lacking in the character, manhood, and visions of those who raise hand and advance to say that they can represent us. It the welcomed acceptance of what is so missing across the political board in this country. There is Mr. Jaipaul Sharma.

I am willing to surrender my place, he offers. Have it, if only to salvage us from the savaging fate that lurks over the political leadership fence. This kind of noble personal sacrifice is rarely ever manifested or detected in this warped, spirit-draining swamp of a land. Everybody wants, including the moronic. Everyone is entitled, especially the unclean and unsavory. Every son must have, and none more than the prodigal creatures in the political pantheon that parade nakedly across the catwalks of our attention.

In the end, nobody gets anything. That is, save for the usual inner circles of the unleashed felonious and the unchecked predatory. In this society, the characterless, the mindless, and classless float to the top. They always do around times of elections. And that is why Guyanese are lambasted and ridiculed as the largest losers and most pitiful of failures everywhere in the world.

What is coming clearer to me, by the moment, is that this is no longer the contemplation of the lesser of two political evils. But simply, finally, and irrefutably, the existence of just two plain, irredeemable evils. There are only the perennial quadrennial losers. Those would be the Guyanese voters; to be more accurate: every single Guyanese, regardless of how well-placed, how much they are able to grab for themselves. All of us are losers, merely for being here.

The internal squabbling is a vulgar spectacle. It is more than about the tone, intemperance, and arrogance of political asininity. It is about baring the bosom and the soul with what matters most to political leeches and louts in the domestic heath. It is, also, of a voting populace that still possesses something in its membranes that makes it believe them, support them, stand with them, and vote for either of them. I say to hell with the delicacy of the lesser of two evils; it is the sum of the evil winds that blow, what Guyanese used to call, wicked spirit deh pun wee.

In any other society on this planet, even in that of the beasts of burden, it would be opportunity and time for an aroused and sickened citizenry to flare into the fury of action. Dismissive and decisive discarding action. The new people would be given a chance. Prove yourselves. Let’s check them out and really give them a try. The new arrivals would be granted the narrow opening to deliver something, something different, something of the untasted wholesome, something of the never experienced uplifting, so long overdue.

Then I come to my senses: I remember that this is Guyana. Beautiful and carnal. Scarred and crippled, but still hustling the streets. No one, most of all me, should expect or challenge for something of the new, from something so ragged, so aged. And with that, I find myself in the same place where I started, which is the nowhere of, unchanging day. Stale priorities. Wretched people. Rancid existence. After all the riches, perhaps those are deserving.

Mr. GHK Lall is a Guyanese author, columnist and former financial analyst on Wall Street.