OPINION: Dr. Asha Kissoon: legal and constitutional v. moral and ethical

Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 December 2024, 18:55 by Writer

By GHK Lall

Dr. Asha Kissoon is unknown to me. Regrettably, the good doctor is now known for some less than inspiring reasons. I wish it were different, that I had cause to write a strong word of support for her in the predicament in which she has made for herself, where she has trapped herself. It is always uplifting to read of someone who has risen so well academically and professionally as this doctor-cum-politician. It is good that a woman, Dr. Asha Kissoon, made the cut to what she has before her name. What is now attached to her name is where the problem starts. As I said just now, it is all of her own making.

Without a doubt, Dr. Kissoon’s appointment was legal and constitutional, as she boldly asserted. But may I say that when one sticks to that narrow framework, the law is transformed into that disparaging remark made by one of the grander names in English literature, Charles Dickens. From the mouth of Oliver Twist’s Mr. Bumble, “the law is a ass—a idiot.” Regardless of whether the origin of that phrase is Dickens or dramatist George Chapman, it has gained much popular currency and with good reason. The British did have their uses, their glorious insights and moments. The legal also bounded Shakespeare’s Antonio to repay Shylock his pound of flesh. I am still with Dr. Kissoon. I must also confess that I am running out of steam. For when the legal is held this intimately, then I shudder to think of what the constitutional could be made to do, as also insisted by Dr. Kissoon. Or by those offering whispers in her ear, and a shoulder for bracing her in what appears to be an increasingly nasty journey. I try helping.

What price a seat in the house of the people? I am tempted to remind my fellow Guyanese that an English king was ready to sacrifice his entire kingdom for a horse. He failed and he fell. In the Guyana context and Dr. Kissoon’s cauldron of self-generating controversies, none of this may matter, but I continue. For if not, then what kind of society will Guyanese have? What kind of citizen would I be?

What regard, Dr. Kissoon, for the people with whom company was shared? What duty to one’s word given freely? What honor affixed to one agreement entered into willingly? The law has its rigid outlines, which often transforms flesh and blood men and women into skeletons; so anemic is the job that it does on them. The Americans have a phrase that I like. What a piece of work! Guyana’s honorable attorney general, Mr. Mohabir Anil Nandlall can attest to that idiom; even go deeper, should he be bold enough to try a peek.

When I write about price and regard and duty and honor, the law is left far behind. No matter how meritorious it may be as a cause, as a position, held dearly. No seat is worth the calumnies that this young Guyanese of some achievement has had to endure, are sure to persist with even greater vigor, now that she has stepped from behind the shadows. No seat, I repeat, not even that of president, or vice president, nor Leader of the Opposition. I trust that I have made myself clear in what I write today. Even clearer in what is unsaid, but still embedded in the invisible fine print. There I go, the legal again.

My understanding is that there was/is an agreement between Dr. Asha Kissoon and her now outraged and embittered comrades. Pardon me, former comrades. From my humbly rooted perspective, that should and must count for something. Something more than the legal and constitutional. It must count for something in the realms of the moral and ethical. Singular realms, for the edification of Dr. Kissoon, and not the jagged shoals into which they have been made to be. In my book of a few paragraphs and fewer pages only, the moral and ethical will always trump the legal and the constitutional. If I may be permitted the unwanted chore, I share with Dr. Kissoon that there is that sublime substance known as a personal constitution. Most ironically, and this should have majestic application on the doctor’s chart, it has to do with a peculiar variety of personal health. I am sure that she will get my drift, pause long enough to understand. Speaker, deputy speaker, minister, and being the best of a medical practitioner are all not worth one damn. Not when one’s hand has been extended in the firmest, most authentic of clasps to signal heartfelt and trusted commitment, and what has happened happens. Not when those whose hands that are shook turn around, they behold the unbelievable. Instead of a diamond, there is a dagger. A hidden dagger is the worst of dangers. I think that another wonderful doctor, the great Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, could open a medical school to teach Guyanese about such a concealment. My only words left for Dr. Asha Kissoon is simple: let go of the seat. Some things must mean more in this life.