OPINION: Guyana caught in history’s revolving door

Last Updated on Saturday, 9 May 2026, 9:09 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

Instead of the profound, try the regular.  Two teaspoons only, 10 milligrams a shot.  I present how history is unchanging.  A treadmill: there’s the illusion of movement.  But going nowhere.  A carousel -spinning, going, but coming back to the same place.  Make a swift snatch for what has to be had.  Guyanese are always on the move, so they know.  Pre-oil, in their droves; inside the circle of oil, more flying, sailing, hustling.  Then, pausing and taking stock.  What has changed?  Not much it may seem.  For those who look deeply, however, nothing at all.

There was Burnham.  His ambition was for only his voice, his message only, and only his truths to monopolize and dominate the public mind.  He tried hard.  He failed.  Contrarian whispers from tiny corners (Mirror, Dayclean, Catholic Standard); this is how things truly are.  The power of the Supreme State at the beck and call of a Supreme Leader.  Mobilized, let loose.  Go get them.  Fast forward.  It is 2026.  How different is it from 1976?  There was Burnham.  There is Bharrat Jagdeo.  From No Ads to yuh too baad.  From no newsprint to no money.  It is another attempt at nationalization of the Guyanese mind, coercion of thinking.  Ask Dr. Ali and AG Nandlall.  Like Burnham, democracy is the flag under which they all march.  It’s good for the people.  Ali took a page out of LFS Burnham’s tattered, motheaten autobiography.  He got one of his premier henchmen to show the PPP the ropes.  This is how it’s done: Stabroek News gone.  Whoever can’t be compelled get carted out.  Nandlall swears that’s democracy.  I say it is history repeating its circle, doing its 360, and ending up right where it started.

The Queen of England gave Guyanese a piece of paper in 1966.  Instruments of Independence.  By golly, that resonates, restoreth my soul.  In 2016, the Oil Kings of America gave Guyanese another piece of paper.  An IOU; enslaved and indebted to death.  Independence extended by the English.  Liberty retarded by the Yanks.  Speaker of the House, the Hon Manzoor Nadir was wise.  He saw the lay of the land, took evasive action.  When parliament is powerless (Exxon), reduced to a pawn (Ali-Jagdeo-Nandlall), words banned (Nadir) why even bother with rigging elections?  Command the institutions, command the environment.  Hang it with elastic.  What has changed from the last century to this one?  How is the quality of history under Burnham different from the atrocities inflicted on it by Jagdeo?

Indo-Guyanese were bitter, furious, despairing over the Guyana Police Force.  The Burnham-directed Police Force.  It was a lethal force.  Yes, it was.  Today Afro-Guyanese are bitter, furious, despairing over the Guyana Police Force.  Phantoms of the imagination, or creatures out of a living nightmare?  I say nothing.  Seek not to influence one citizen.  Old history and old reality, or a new discovery in the fields of democracy.  Step up Guyana.  Speak to truth.  However, upsetting.

The PNC used to go after objectionable Guyanese vengefully.  Howls of passionate protest.  Smug silence the answer.  From green-shirted to red clad, sticks and bricks carry the same weight.  Check with the blue people.  The times weaponized perpetually.  Germany had its chambers.  What does Guyana have?  Consider efforts to incinerate naysayers, those who don’t follow the script.  New day, same way.

Decades ago, cartoons were an afterschool treat.  Today, social media in Guyana is a running, repeating, never-ending cartoon, complete with loudmouths (Yosemite Sam), troublemakers (Daffy Duck) and bumblers (Fred Flintstone).  Guyanese who didn’t like to read, now get to breathe.  In this era, functional illiterates celebrate their newfound status as darlings of idiocy and incurable insanity.  Sweep the street of them.  Broom them out from behind their bushes (businesses).  Recall the author of those masterpieces.  Check with Pres Ali and politely ask him to call an identity parade.  Social media is the new broom that should sweep clean.  Times don’t change.  Neither do people.  Only the names and faces.