AS the world turns, the bold and the beautiful are becoming rich and famous, accepting that once is not enough to experience everything in this assumptive one life to live. No wonder we should all value and treasure each other’s life as we would our own. At a time when we face frightening possibilities of fracture and even dissolution, it would be disastrous to insist that our differences outweigh what we have in common. No man, movement, or public mood, after all, is an island entirely of itself. One man’s happiness cannot be bought by another man’s misery. As haziness clouded the atmosphere over the past 48 hours in Guyana, the brilliant sunshine evaded the ambience of sadness, as if to empathise with the gloom that has dawned the nation to a partial doom. The country has surpassed the 50th COVID-19 death total as America strikes the 191,000 figure. In a year when the coronavirus pandemic has reshaped countless International rituals and ceremonies, even the commemoration of 9/11 could not escape unchanged as the 19th anniversary of the terror attacks was marked by duelling ceremonies in New York City at the September 11 memorial plaza and a corner near the World Trade Centre. Nineteen years ago Friday, nearly 3,000 American lives were lost when planes were hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Guyana cannot practise the art of parallel purposes as does the developed nations. The PPP/C party as a new government has just taken the baton from the APNU+AFC party, inheriting a devastating, bankrupt economy with an impoverished population and interfaced with the repercussions of a pandemic and the mercenary criminal ruthlessness in society by organised bandits. To be immediately saddled with the perplexity of purposeful racial incitement by deliberate political injection resulting in deaths, looting, damage, injuries, burning and other atrocities, further compound the delicate fragility of the government’s infancy. Was the Henry cousins tragedy a well-orchestrated scenario that solidified a foundation as a springboard for the infamous eventualities that materialised as a consequence (whereby the lives lost were used as a political sacrifice), or, were the murdered bodies coincidentally used conveniently to create racial mayhem and uproar with a political agenda? The crave for financial greed and political power would influence any diabolic character to engineer any length of devious indulgence. Nothing is impossible and all hypotheses must be considered, especially with so many criminal elements parading in disguise freely in today’s society, undetected but, suspected. The rapacious urge for oil-revenue controllership is another imploding attraction that influences the mischievous aggradation of hysterical behaviour from denied extortionists. Too many eye and hair-raising coincidences are rapidly developing, too good for comfort, under the watch of an oil-signing contract being shelved in abeyance and the public outcry for re-negotiation for improved conditions.

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen Kamala Harris described how Americans acted with love and courage on 9/11 and the days following the tragedy. “What our attackers failed to understand is that the darkness they hoped would envelope us on 9/11 instead summoned our most radiant and defined human instincts — the instinct to care for one another, to transcend our divisions and see ourselves as fellow citizens, to race toward danger and risk everything to protect each other, the instinct to unite,” she said. It is sad to acquiesce with all the accusations circulating in Guyana, pointing fingers (with substantial proof) at those accused of imperfections. Too many insincere innuendoes are stymying the sensitiveness of the grieving situation, while, many culprits are sneering happily behind the curtain, planning another catastrophic move. The dust will not easily settle on the dirt anyway quickly and, the wounds will remain unhealed for quite a while. Too many broken homes from both sides of the divide will not succumb to the public open sympathy and the cry for real justice may remain unfulfilled. Only by wearing their shoes will anyone be able to feel their pain and experience their agony. But the resilience and bravado of Gladstone Henry, father of Isaiah Henry, one of the unfortunate victims, is commendable and his words of advice speak volumes for all conscientious Guyanese to finally sit up, listen, take note and implement. His sincere pleadings should move mountains and cement a unity that is absent in a diversified nation, a division planted by the owner of the “divide-and-conquer” Burnhamite strategy.
President Dr. Irfaan Ali’s decision to engage international help to intervene in helping to investigate these criminal activities is understandable, acceptable and desirable. This is not foreign interference nor dependence nor preference, but an added neutrality that will supplement the smoothness of domestic police operation. His request also for the Attorney General Anil Nandlall to explore within the UN system all means available to hold to account all those who spread race hate and instigate racial strife, is commendable. Also, announcing that efforts will be made to explore the commissioning of a CoI to look at every aspect of this situation, comprehensively understand and apprehend the instigators, is much required. His three-tier resolution programme and his Friday’s stern warning issued to persons utilising social media platforms to promote racial hatred, race baiting and racial hostility, should send a caution, alerting all those who are committed to destabilising this nation, that they will be severely dealt with condignly and expeditiously and that he means business. President Dr. Irfaan Ali remains fearless by leading from the front and will not be scared by any challenge of any nature.

Respectfully,
Jai Lall.