OPINION: The democracy of dangerous men

Last Updated on Saturday, 23 November 2024, 21:41 by Writer

By GHK Lall

Excellency Narendra Modi made me think, pushed me to the brink. I bow in acknowledgement. A leader who could preside over steadfast oppression and sometimes systematic demolition of the way of life of over 200 million of his citizens, could still speak sweetly of democracy. He knows its soft spots, those very sweet ones, and has cultivated them well. Excellency Modi is in good company. There is an American, a Guyanese, Germans and other Europeans. The latter two are identified as marching under the banner of the far right. The first two are hailed as being about the essence of democracy. Something curdled rancidly.

Narendra Modi, Donald Trump, and Bharrat Jagdeo saw the loophole from the beginning. Democracy has that sweetest of sweet spots. Democracy afforded the luxury of demagoguery. Democracy’s ideals only needed to be said. The louder the better, the more long lasting, the deeper and more fevered the impression. After all, why not make use of the numbers that favor. The underbelly of democracy is that it allows cultivation of the mob. Who has a bigger, stronger, more engaged and dedicated mob than Modi? Or Mr. Trump? Or our own Dr. Jagdeo? They have their numbers and their mobs. Religion or race or haves and have-nots. Or all of them. The soft and sweet spot in democracy is that it permits calculatingly dangerous men to play with those numbers to their advantage. Who is going to challenge them? Who, when institutions have been subverted?

So, they say anything that they want, knowing full well that they can and will get away with their excesses. No matter how farfetched, or how displaced from reality, the strength of their mobs see to their continued existence. Mobs have a strength and a weakness. Numbers and numbness to reason, so unconscious as for there to be total unconcern. Try this short list. Inclusion—for what benefit? Sharing—on what grounds? Honesty and authenticity, and with what result, other than self-impoverishing? Treat contemporaries with honesty and dignity, to what purpose? Self-weakening and impotency?

In each one of those, the weakness of the mob should be evident. A mob, any mob, is mindless. Modi and Trump and Jagdeo all know that all too well. Tell them about the nobility of democracy from one side of the mouth, while from the other, there are India’s citizenship laws, Guyana’s cybercrime laws, and Trump’s soon-to come immigration laws. Free speech is their domain. Theirs alone or, in the instance of Guyana, what Jagdeo says it is, and only those capable of exercising it responsibly. It is my pleasure to introduce brothers Anil Nandlall and Samuel Hinds. Long before Elvis Pressley started twisting and swiveling his hips, Jagdeo did that with his tongue. His tongue and his mind and those of Mr. Modi have an uncanny similarity. To his resident plenipotentiary, I respectfully leave the duty to convey my felicitations.

In India a leader oversees the blowing up of a mosque, the eradication of trust and hope (laws and practices) and he calls it democracy. There is neither care nor concern that harsh and poignant reality on the ground of those reduced to the roles of not being considered human. There is Gaza in India, Shree Modi. There is Gaza in Guyana, just a matter of scale. Those dispossessed from their homes. Those whose dreams have been ruthlessly purged. Those to whom the law has just that lesser sense of justice. Should I call Dr. Jagdeo’s name? He did that himself. To be, to belong, is to be a blight. One Guyana again reinforces what I have always sensed, seen what it represents. Mr. Modi left all the way from Delhi to enlighten Guyanese about singular ambassadors for Indo Guyanese. What do I tell my children, my family, whose members are Indo Guyanese, and then all the other tissues in the Guyana Rainbow? That they belong, but not on an equal footing. Here is a chuckle. I wrote about the PPP sharing out cook-up rice during the Local Government Elections. I am still waiting for them, and the rest: from Jagdeo to Nandlall and whoever else. Now, using Mr. Jagdeo’s standard, somebody should lodge Mr. Modi’s name with the ERC. And the ICJ for what he is doing in India. Demagogues, no matter of how much they wrap themselves in the costume of democracy, are still demagogues.

Over there in the USA, there is Trump. Play to fears. Stir the basest passions. Then, let the mobs run free. Some wear judicial robes. Many wear suits and those bigoted smiles that remind of George Wallace, Bull Connor, Strom Thurmond, and those other Grand Exalted Cyclops. In Greek mythology, cyclops had one eye. It is how men who have their own special brand of democracy see the world. Possessing a certain purity. In India it is the supremacy of religion, but that is democracy. In America, it is white supremacy, however couched (if at all) and it is the only democracy. In Guyana, it is One Guyana, and in that democracy, it is who is in and who is out. Mr. Modi confirmed that, didn’t he? Since they are anointed ambassadors for Indos, then the very narrowness of that representation signifies who are left on their own. Without tribunes to plead case. Lacking in envoys to stand between the wall collapsing and the road cleared.

Men like Modi, Trump, and Jagdeo are clearly neither lean nor hungry. But they are dangerous. Dangerous to democracy. Dangerous to the citizenry (especially those who disagree). Dangerous to what is right and fair and inspiring. It is more than the era of the strongman. This is the time of the dangerous man.