OPINION: Stop crying ‘Uncle Sam’

Last Updated on Friday, 6 September 2024, 20:48 by Writer

By Dr. Randy Persaud. Professor Emeritus

It is astounding that the same people who call for magnanimity are the very ones who make a living by pushing poison pills into the public sphere on a daily basis. GHK Lall’s “Oil has embittered and divided Guyana even more” (KN, Sept. 2, 2024) readily comes to mind. Allow me to respond to what can only be termed a set of senseless claims made in the said column.

GHK Lall wants President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo to be more like Obama. Well, in many ways they are indeed like him, where political rhetoric is concerned. Below are some quotations from the same Obama convention speech referred to by GHK Lall.

Here is Obama referring to Trump: “a 78-year-old billionaire who hasn’t stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago. It’s been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that’s actually gotten worse now that he’s afraid of losing.”

Here is Obama on Trump’s psychological disposition: He has “crazy conspiracy theories and weird obsession with crowd size.”

Here is Obama on the opposition Republicans: “For them, one group’s gain is another group’s loss. For them, freedom means that the powerful can do what they please, whether its fire workers trying to organize a union or poison our rivers or avoid paying taxes like everybody else has to do.” Obama criticizes the opposing side just like Ali and Jagdeo.

While Obama predictably issued the call to “the better angels of our nature,” it did not stop him from ripping the Republican candidate, and in fact, the entire opposition. You should know that no less an outlet than Politico observed that Obama “…absolutely skewers Trump” (8/21/2024). The connotative meaning of “skewers” is this: “to criticize someone or something, or make an unkind joke about them, in a way that is very accurate or reveals the truth about them.”

The truth is Obama’s quip about Trump, namely, “[he] keeps running his leaf blower outside your window every minute of every day,” seems to apply equally to the APNU and AFC, as well as to GHK Lall himself. He attacks the PPP seven days a week, excepting when he is seeking support for a friend.

GHK Lall complains that Ali and Jagdeo are fixated on the past. Well, yes! The past that Ali and Jagdeo are fixated on is the dismal track record of the APNU-AFC, and especially their election rigging antics less than four years ago. If Obama can go all the way back to Lincoln, why can’t the PPP comment on what has happened in our recent past and current political cycle?

Lall should know that the job of a political party is to compete against other political parties, not to praise them, and certainly not to cajole those whose conduct at election time has been historically marked by the vituperative rhetoric of race and violence. The PPP takes political competition to be healthy for democracy. To critique and debate is to engage.

Finally, it is rather alarming that Lall continues to evince the thought of himself as a “one-man movement.” His words, not mine. Why, and how could such a thing be? This messianic ‘dream’ regularly surfaces in his writings. For sound social scientific reasons, I do not try to get into the heads of people because you can’t ever do that without trying to be God. Instead, I focus on what is said, written, or done.

On that basis, Guyana has seen too many One-Man shows. All of them have been characterized by some ‘smart guy’ (usually a ‘foreign’) who thinks he has figured everything out, and must save the country. These are the ones who end up tying their bundles with undemocratic social forces in the country. The main objective is to get some recognition.

For the sociologists out there, you know that Max Weber had figured out something that Marx did not understand, namely, that human beings are ‘status-seeking.’ Marx thought status is a form of ‘false consciousness.’

When someone imagines himself to be a “One-Man movement,” we must all be concerned. If you truly want to make a contribution to Guyana’s future development, then stop tearing it down every day. Stop finding race and corruption in everything you think and do. Stop defending election riggers. Stop attacking those who have been freely and fairly elected, while you defend those who attempted to violate the most fundamental right and responsibility of citizens, which is to freely elect their representatives. Stop using free speech to claim there is no free speech. Stop being so weak that when people respond to what you write; you cry ‘Uncle’ – (in this case ‘Uncle Sam’).

Dr. Randy Persaud is an adviser in Guyana’s Office of the President.