OPINION: No exit for GHK Lall

Last Updated on Tuesday, 9 July 2024, 18:01 by Writer

By Dr. Randy Persaud, Professor Emeritus

Good writers always have an exit. By this I mean that when you back yourself into a corner, you have a full repertoire of strategic or tactical moves that can bail you out. This is normal when you write regularly about politics, and especially important when you situate yourself in the upper echelons of political commentary. Freddie Kissoon, Joel Bhagwandin, Ravi Dev, and the Peeping Toms have all mastered this technique of credible egress. I regret to report, however, that Nigel Hughes’ ascendency to the leadership has trapped GHK Lall in an embarrassing position from which he is unable to escape.

To get the ball rolling, let us begin by quoting GHK Lall. We do this in order that the man does not claim that he was misinterpreted. Here is Lall: “In view of the rancid and destructive post March 2020 national elections developments, I had washed my hands of ever voting again in another electoral contest in this country. The announcement of Mr. Hughes’ return to do battle in the local political wars was welcomed, reduced my resistance to voting again” (KN July 5, 2024). What we have here is St. Gabriel the messenger for Granger in the last election, faking disgust with the transparent electoral grand-theft scheme concocted and operationalized by the PNC-led APNU+AFC. If St. Gabriel was so disgusted with the electoral banditry, why has he been defending them and advancing the cause of the APNU+AFC without any sense of restraint.

There! You just saw it. A bold and brazen attempt to wash his hands of the “rancid and destructive post March 2020 national elections developments.” But you may recall that the month before the 2020 elections GHK Lall basically intimated that God had sent Granger. Then that God got implicated, so much so, that GHK Lall thought he would never vote again.

And then by turns, enters Nigel Hughes, for whom GHK Lall has all kinds of reverential feelings.

I suppose miracles do happen. If the Elder God (Granger) disappointed St. Gabriel with “rancid and destructive” electoral behavior, to the point of him abandoning the sacred duty of voting, then the Little God (Hughes) could get things right. The Little God could deliver GHK Lall from the banishment he had imposed on himself. And you know what, GHK could find philosophical defence in the work of no less than Søren Kierkegaard, who in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, offers (it appears), someone like GHK Lall wide latitude with playing around with facts.

You see Kierkegaard had developed a notion known as existential subjectivity in which objective facts need not be the only basis from which you can derive truth or ethical conduct. The philosophical ethics of the Danish scholar allows for one to develop a “subjective relationship” with the facts. It appears that GHK Lall has manipulated Kierkegaard’s postmodern technique of irony, into something quite literal. Facts could now be twisted and still one could live with oneself.

Lall has spent the past three years relentlessly attacking the PPP governance of the oil and gas industry. Most of the attacks hover around PPP’s supposed lenient relationship with Exxon (and partners). Thousands of words have been written about the unforgivable sins pertaining to Conflict of Interest. Then, in comes the savior, the golden man, the Little God that GHK Lall had hoped would descend onto these 83,000 square miles. But Mr. Hughes is adamant that he will not give up his highly privileged relationship with Exxon. By implication, it is reasonable to deduce that his personal, professional, and financial interests cannot take second place to the national interest. By further implication, Nigel Hughes, has publicly humiliated GHK Lall. And now, poor Mr. Lall is left with no credible exit.

In the larger context of things, a line from V.S. Naipaul may be of comfort for GHK Lall: “All landscapes eventually turn to land, the gold of the imagination to the lead of reality.”