OPINION: Don Singh: illness, death, then more sickness, deathly states

Last Updated on Tuesday, 30 June 2026, 4:57 by Denis Chabrol

By GHK Lall

I met Mr. Don Singh just once. Stopped and shared a few minutes in pleasant conversation. Whatever his politics, my impression was of a decent fellow. When the news of his sudden illness came, it was a surprise. Now that he has left these shores, may his soul rest in peace. To his biological family, my condolences on what has to be a hard loss. To his political family, regrets at losing a formidable worker. And, to my regret, whenever I make the mistake of thinking that things can’t get worse in this country, sink to more depraved depths, they do.

I struggle to understand how some can find joy in a man’s illness. A political man, a prince of a man, poor man, or a man who may have made himself, or be seen as, an enemy, it does not matter. There is ugly and there is ugly. To chortle privately on receiving the news of sickness is bad enough. To celebrate sickness in the vast public space of social media is degrading to an unfathomably dreadful level. It’s a sickness of a terrible kind by itself. Guyanese have really sunk to the bottom of a bottomless pit. When the savaging politics of this land of barbarians takes precedence over basic humanity, and day-to-day decency. I don’t care who is involved, so I say it now, and will say it forever. Whoever finds laughter, a time to engage in mockery, and an opportunity to kick a man, during a time of serious illness, that is one sick puppy. Sick in the head. Sick to the soul. And so sick and so callously indifferent that may have already died.

It is at times like these that I am glad to hold what is for me a prized outsider status. Not trapped and warped by the prejudices that power local politics. Not condemned to the garbage dumpsite where ancient political grudges fester and flourish. There is so much hating, the call to forgiving may now be forever lost. Guyanese are ghosts inside a skeleton that is overloaded and overflowing with a stream of poisons that find escape and the worst expressions when there is a human tragedy. Who is so base they see an enemy during those painful moments of loss and human catastrophe? I cast my eyes across to Venezuela and devastating earthquakes of this and that magnitude, and a full body shiver runs amok. Guyanese are so fortunate when the licks and kicks of providence were allocated. Perhaps that explains why the people of this country are so cursed. By the irresistible pull of their politics hurling them towards all that they have come to know: gutter reactions. Such was what stalked the news of Mr. Don Singh’s illness.

Now that he is gone to his creator, there was a moment for many of the social media warriors to regroup and recollect themselves. Having had a good laugh at sickness, the news of the man’s death was a line not to be crossed. Except that it was. The unbreachable breached. Treating self with profanity and vulgarity amid threnodies of grieving. Guyanese do wear their disgrace on their sleeves. All self-respect hollowed out and proudly displayed on the altar of political frenzies that burn at higher and higher pitches. Seeing that sickness and death are causes for ostentatious displays of ignorance, it is no wonder that living has become such a corrosive burden in this divided, raucous, self-defeating society.

I behold Guyanese, who are committed to tearing apart and bringing down each other. It is all in the name of the wrenching and divisive politics that have haunted this land, in times of peace and relative quiet. Thus, I cringe in thinking of how citizens may be to fellow citizens in times that are hostile and more hateful. Often, I am glad that, though many a thought is shared in public spaces, there is still rebuffing getting any closer. The armor that protects. The safety net that upholds sanity. May the soul of this brother, Don Singh, find eternal rest.