OPINION: Secrets, silence, suppression: pattern or culture?

Last Updated on Wednesday, 29 April 2026, 17:56 by Writer

By GHK Lall

Secrets. Silence. Suppression. Communism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism lived and thrived on those. The tyrants and demagogues that inflicted a red tide of devastation on their people, societies, are well-recognized by history. From such well-planted roots men were indoctrinated; then sprouted up and branched out. Guyana offers stark testimony. Secrets, silence, suppression. Try arguing. Work at denying. Sift through these.

A former minister concealed by webs extending from ceiling to flooring. The law rendered impotent, a laughingstock. A tool to be twisted, derided. The circumstances of a former permanent secretary rearranged. Thus, exposed insiders are rechanneled and repointed. Old deviousness, unlawful usefulness, perpetuated. A sitting minister, a driver damaging an asset of the people. Lockjaw steps in. Biological family and political family intersecting, scheming, sending the worst messages about rule of law, and respect for it. They said so, insist such are so. Not I. Part the veils, pierce the layers, and there’s the display in a political mausoleum. Bodies laid out. Waxen, but still the stench. Oh, the stench! I am informed, lectured, enlightened, corrected. This is democracy. Maybe so. But by whom, of whom, and for whom?

The law bent to cover up rascals, to rehabilitate rogues into patriots, democrats, and national aristocrats. And, of course, with Guyana now well-entrenched among oil rich countries, the political plutocrats prosper, swagger. Sweet labor for insiders, winners; hard labor for outsiders and losers left behind, beyond the grand, prosperous circle. Imagination? Deformed sense of comprehension? Well then, face the nation and tell all the peoples the truths embedded in the conspiracies and collusions that spring from the earth, like ruptured graves after an earthquake. Somebody in authority step up and say something to the Guyanese people. The secrets have spilled (only some). The silence shattered (part of it). The suppression that’s the norm cracked around the ribcage. Whoever is holding this house of cards in one piece step forward and share? For US$2 billion (building to US$2.5 billion, as anticipated), Guyanese are owed something besides secrets, silence, suppression. Of messages and messengers. Government for the people, of the people, and by the people demands that they are given more than loose, accidental snippets of details, dark as they are, for their GY$400-500 billion.

A billion or ten siphoned off from cash grants may (may!) be understandable, forgivable. But what to do, how to dispose of GY$400 to 500 billion, now there’s trouble? This is bigger than ministers, prime ministers, the slipperiest national leaders. This is bigger than any government. Why secrets, silence, suppression still stand? Why a government standing down, mocking, dismissing? Seeking to distract with insipid deflection over a brooch. Isn’t that pitiful, reflective of the utterly abject?

In secrets, silence, and suppression, two compelling attributes are grasped. May pose challenges for some. Not me. Pattern or culture? Pattern has a limited length, life, memory that’s temporary. Culture is continuous, cross generational, staggered across centuries and history. Culture, whether of the devious and destructive or, in the rare cases, the enlightened and inspiring, is still studied, absorbed and talked about. Either recoiling or strengthening follows. Patterns come and go, and are as fleeting as weak and haughty men who are all chirping sound and stand for absolutely nothing. Conmen is the description that fits best, suits the types present here. It would be a fatal error to look in one direction, size up and dismiss one crowd. Pick a color, any shade.

When secrets plague projects great and small. When silence is the standing answer for brawls and other boisterous behaviors. When suppression is held as the best resolution, a perfect proxy for information. Then, what is Guyana: democracy or tyranny? When Guyanese existence is littered and laced, sewn and saturated with the seeds of secrets, silence, and suppression, I submit that a culture reigns supreme. Pattern is out of the question, long faded from any honest consideration. It is the paramountcy of the dirty, the tricky, and those crippled with the sickly. Guyana is the richest in this hemisphere, maybe universe. It is the sickest also. Secrets, silence, suppression. When those are monarchs, it must be a monstrous age.