By GHK Lall
This man’s Robert Herman Orlando Corbin’s handiworks needs a longer, slower look. In dying, it seems that Mr. Corbin is more alive. Certainly, his spirit has taken on a motivating quality, a pervading strength. Who would have believed? I wouldn’t have gone so far. Some housekeeping is in order first.
The attentive in Guyana would notice that I have been silent relative to a tribute on the passing of Robert Corbin. Let it suffice to say that I take to heart that profound Latin exhortation: de mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est (of the dead nothing but good is to be said). There I leave it. From there, I now gravitate to some intriguing, post-passage Corbin developments. What the man couldn’t achieve while he was around, he now compels others to get done. As Guyana would say: dah maan gat a strang spirit.
For there was Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, who is PPP through and through, even to his own self-stunting, now rebalancing his portfolio, and reengineering himself, as Dr. PPP-PNC. See, why there’s so much regard for the Americans. Nicely done, Excellency. I can hear her message. What is going on in Guyana cannot continue to go on. Damnit! Assuredly, Dr. Jagdeo was not quite that enthusiastic about moving from where he has always been stuck. But there was that other motivating factor. A former best friend of the president, and as close as a friend can get to Jagdeo, Nandlall, et al, now the PPP’s most feared foe. A man that’s being made into a monstrous foe, with all manner of prior governmentally concealed stories now unearthed in a court of law, and hung out on the Guyana clothesline.
Mr. Azruddin Mohamed of WIN is that second motivating factor, for Dr. Jagdeo now being Dr. PPP-PNC. There was the shock aka seismic shift of 16 parliamentary seats. If Mohamed can do that in five months, there’s no fooling around with what he could get done in five years (once he stays out of jail). Go ahead! Let Jagdeo and company deny. A former bankroller, let that also be denied. Hence, that most cunning of political animals returns. Bharrat Jagdeo is his name. Political vision and political preparation are his games. Relative to Mr. Mohamed, the ambassadors got him into parliament. Now they will have to spring him out of the penitentiary. This country is a real basket case. PPP Govt leaders have to be given a steady supply of oxygen; the opposition leader has to be salvaged. The fear of Mohamed and WIN sent Dr. Jagdeo in sanctimonious spells during his Robert Corbin pre-funeral march, peroration. Dr. Jagdeo is now Dr. PPP-PNC. Forget about strange bedfellows. This is incestuous bed fellowship. Who will trick whom? Watching Guyanese wait to learn that score.
Next, this now dearly departed brother, leader, liberator worked some more of his afterlife magic. What the living God objected to, refused to bless, a dead RHO Corbin got done all by himself. There it was, broadcast across Guyana, and around the world: the Ali-Norton embrace. What to make of that movement, and what’s behind it? Motivations. Visions. Conditions. In sum, additions, multiplications, and divisions (the long political kind). If anyone expects me to go further, there’s this kind word of counsel. Keep expecting.
I didn’t do my usual, i.e., pen a tribute to Mr. Robert H. O. Corbin. But I do him better, by going a step farther. I pen a prayer of thanksgiving for his handiworks. Even when gone, he is around. Even when out of it, he is still in the middle of Guyana’s politics, and a wonderful motivational spirit. A man had to die, for Dr. Ali, Dr. Jagdeo, and Mr. Norton to start breathing. May his soul rest in eternal peace. In Guyana, a new day begins. It is shaping up to be a new era, a new strain, of war and peace.
