OPINION: President Ali should give up the warrior pose, start listening more

Last Updated on Sunday, 8 October 2023, 10:27 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

A social media clip came to me overnight, compliments of a citizen.  It was His Excellency, President Dr. Irfaan Ali.  After the first line, “Everybody is a specialist now…a former president…” I took a hasty exit when he reached “engineer” in that same sentence.  For what I saw and heard in those 15-20 seconds was not a dear beloved national leader, a brother I can respect.  What I saw and heard was a crude rapper and low dancehall performer.  What’s up, comrade leader, esteemed brother, with all the prowling on the stage, as if some Guyanese version of an over-fueled white rocker, or some Jamaican rude boy?

President Ali aimed and fired his potshot at who I take to be His Excellency Donald Ramotar (a “former president”).  If a man who was with founder Cheddi Jagan could be disparaged in this manner-“a specialist” of no standing-then I shudder to think of how those outside the party’s fold are damned and denigrated.  A President is a president, and of that let there not be any mistake.  Let there be an absence of mean-spirited attack on a man calling for better for Guyana, through renegotiation, through delivering those responsible for the national audit humiliation.

Disturbingly, Excellency Ali is excited to fire a salvo at former President Ramotar, who spoke like a true patriot, a man with working class instincts.  But the same Excellency Ali is content to grin and grimace while another former President, Dr. B. Jagdeo makes him (he, President Ali) into an international spectacle.  I deal in velvet today because it is the presidency involved.  I even take it upon myself, heavy misgivings aside, to address President Ali as ‘doctor’ though there are these swirling national dismissals about even lesser credentials.  It should be noted I address Barry Jagdeo as ‘doctor’ also, notwithstanding that his award is simply honorary.  It is not demanding at all anymore, because I genuinely want to see Ali, Jagdeo, (and Norton) succeed in rising for Guyanese.  I offer President Ali not just a page from my book, but the whole book.  Be receptive to ideas, no matter the source, nor how much they challenge and reduce to ashes.

Consider this: If the President is going to make a living denouncing every Guyanese (women, writers, the independent media, Transparency Institute, engineers, and even a former president [all conscientious objectors]), then all that he would have is a cohort of people who tell him what he wants to hear, who play him.  All the critics and naysayers, Dr. President, are not cranks and crackpots.  All just cannot be.

Further, President Ali should recall Richard Nixon, Joe Stalin, and the Little Corporal from Austria: they surrounded themselves with ‘yes men’ who played to their master’s egos, and look where all those masters ended up.

The point for the president is that some citizen, some engineer, some former president, some dissenter found disagreeable could most likely have some degree of raw intelligence and native wisdom that exceeds that of President Ali himself, and his entire band of advisers.  I regret to inform the President that he and his circle of deniers register (even among his own) as lacking in testosterone, shallow in valor, and deathly anemic where the powerful impulses of patriotism should be.  I rarely find common ground with former President Ramotar, but clearly, he has Guyanese backs.  There are tremendous differences with how former President Jagdeo manages the oil sector on which so much depends; it is what converts him into the worst of caricatures.  If only he would listen, recognize his failures, pickup on his loss of face, then Guyana could get somewhere.  To repeat: there is no value in making him look malevolent and impotent, and regarding his honest intents, which call for Nobel Prize winning tenacity, Herculean labors.  I diminish the VP, and not one Guyanese benefits.  Only Exxon does.  Brother Barry attacks Guyanese, and Exxon prospers again.

When I observe either President Ali or former President Jagdeo making it their duty to defile verbally Guyanese found to be obnoxious because they push for more from Exxon, I discern a smokescreen.  Their blusters are to conceal their chronic leadership deficits, their fake bravados reveal their helpless allegiance to Exxon.  On each occasion that President Ali and VP Jagdeo rail and rant at patriotic Guyanese with bacterial velocity, Exxon’s Viceroy in Guyana, Mr. Alistair Routledge gets a rush of adrenaline.  He is able to wire Exxon’s Texas High Command: the boys are on the job, they are the best, real champs.

Now, it is my hard duty to inform President Ali and former President Jagdeo that they are presidents not pushers or touts for Exxon.  They are presidents for Guyanese, not snarling punks exhibiting pugnacious fierceness on behalf of Exxon.  Whenever one Guyanese is mocked, the President (and VP) fulfills Exxon’s visions.  My last call to President Ali is for the record: the people are watching, and they see what is behind the kimono.  To President Ali, I respectfully tender: listening more could lead to more learning, which could make living and governing cleaner, happier.  Otherwise, risk becoming a political ornament that jive talks, trash talks, and talks bull.