OPINION: Who are the real haters?

Last Updated on Thursday, 7 September 2023, 10:45 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

For a while now operatives of the PPP have come up with a new one: those who are haters of the PPP.  It is a most peculiar contention since some members of the People’s Progressive Party can be so full of hate that it has taken hold of them like a disease.  I think this same hatefulness has spread and infected most of the body of the PPP, that it is now a raging virus in this most important of national groups.  So, who are the true haters?  The PPP haters or those that hate the PPP?  This is what I can attest to from the facts and circumstances on the ground, and of which the record cannot be denied.  First, the personal; yes, as the hate-filled from within protected PPP confines was directed at me.

Almost two years ago, the sacred cows in the PPP directed a smear campaign against me using social media.  It was about whispers and claims of a most reprehensible sort.  It was a site called Live in Guyana, which has operated with total immunity.  It is a public secret that the people behind the online site hold senior positions in the PPP Government.  One is reported to be as high as a member of the Cabinet, while another is a top public servant.  There were two vicious posts within days of each other intended to bring down.  I am still here; putting and puttering around.

The vitriol of hate has a repugnant stench about it, and that was not coming out of me, but from PPP quarters to me.  When a man or a group could stoop so low as to deliver the stuff of septic tanks, then it is not about debating or scoring points, or matters getting out of hand.  It is pure, unadulterated hate at one who torments and drives to madness through writings that cannot be challenged or undermined where truths are concerned.

The second instance of hate also emerging out of the same PPP-owned Live in Guyana online site was about some trumped business involving millions and a purchase.  I classify this as the hatefulness of haters, who exist in the darkness, from where they hurl toxins and similar radioactive matter on those found offensive.  What is my sin, if not for doing exactly what is being done now?  That is, writing for public consumption.  I insist that this is hateful because it insinuates some dark crime committed, some double life lived.  The PPP authors know for themselves that there is no truth to what they deliver, but they do so anyhow with the objective of wounding, and causing limping away.  These are the Guyanese brothers and sisters who are labeling others PPP haters, when they are doing the hating for the rest of Guyana.

On August 29, a Facebook post came to me.  It spoke of Demerara Waves and Denis Chabrol (a friend) as being PPP haters.  His attractiveness for the hate-filled from the PPP is that he is doing what a real journalist should be doing: asking the hard questions, and providing professional news coverage according to the facts and his best judgment.  By the PPP way of thinking, this should not be allowed, and it is hateful because it is not in keeping with the PPP script.  When all-citizens, journalists, commentators, and others-agree with the PPP and its messages or propaganda, then there are fulsome and exemplary citizens.  When anyone dares to speak their mind and all of it, without fear or limitation, then that automatically brands as a PPP hater.  It is an all or none situation for the PPP.

It is the height of irony, the level of venom and savageness, that comes out of the PPP.  The party’s dirty tricks people target and try to make foul examples of them, and here it is that there these same nasty PPP men or women are calling others PPP haters.  By my calculation, there are few, if any, Guyanese whose failures degrade to the type of depraved behaviors that are boiling over with hate from protected PPP insiders.

A few short months ago, some female members of the press corps were vilified and victimized in the worst pay conceivable.  Relationships were fabricated and then expanded to assault the dignity of two Guyanese women causing them great trauma.  The PPP love to remind all and sundry about how PNC hooligans have assaulted and attacked Indian women, and how heinous and unpardonable it was.  Then, there are those inside the PPP who are so consumed and embittered by hate that they brutalize women doing an honest job.

Who are the true haters now?  Look at the victims and determine where and when they hated the PPP.  Could it be for asking hard professional questions on a persistent basis?  How does that amount (like Dem Waves and Chabrol) to being PPP haters?

I agree that there have been sharp disagreements, and sometimes bad blood resulting.  But when the government of the day sees it fit to resort to what are vicious attacks on dissenters and those found disagreeable, then who are the ones, which are the real, deep sources, of hate in this country?

To call someone a predator or a pervert or a two-timer is not a joke or should be part of any civilized conversation.  It is about hate to strike like lightning.  It is hate to frighten those considered to be opponents, and to push them out of contention, or in another direction.  Hate! Hate! Hate!  This has been a PPP hallmark.  They own it.  I can speak about it.