Lucy in the skies with diamonds
In Guyana, when a commentator writes, s/he has to take cognizance all the time that over sixty percent of our population is twenty years of age or under. These sections of society may not know of the top songs of Elton John or the Beatles who dominated the sixties. A Beatles hit made even bigger by John was “Lucy in the Skies with diamonds,” about the fantasy world that the use of psychedelic drugs induce.
In dictatorship, power is Lucy. The difference with power and Lucy is that after Lucy wears off, you come back down to earth. With dictatorial power, you are trapped. You cannot come back down to reality. You have to be dragged down and when that happens, your state of affairs either resembles Hosni Mubarak, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
The analyst in any textbook on authoritarian power will tell you that such power inevitably ends in ignominy and humiliation. Why? Because autocratic power is essentially a Catch 22 process. If you free up on a piecemeal basis, then your opponents will call for a holistic bandwagon because they will see your selected window-opening as window dressing.
An incredible contradiction faces you; once you open up, breeze comes through the window and you don’t want that because the breeze will blow you away. So you stick with your autocracy. When you persist with that kind of governance, you become more mired in political rut.
Once you continue with your dictatorial rule you move further and further away from reality. It is this aspect of power abuse that sinks its practitioners. Dictatorial power is like Lucy in the skies with diamonds – you are living in a world that is not the real one. This is the picture of power in Guyana.
Every major wrong turn is seen as a righteous claim by the PPP. Every infamous exposure is seen as a caricature by the opposition. Every act of depravity is denied. Reality went out the window a long time.
Perhaps the daily expression of Lucy is best captured as the Secretary of the PPP’s power chamber, the Executive Committee— Mr. Hydar Ally. He writes constant letters (at least once a week), mostly to this newspaper. All the dimensions of his assessments of Government and governance are literally billions of miles away from reality. By now, most Guyanese probably look down at the signature and decide not to read his missives.
He is not alone, as Michael Jackson would say. They are many more like Ally who live in the skies with Lucy. Ally is not vulgar but some of his colleagues are.
There was the puppet show that NCN put on a few months ago in which four persons from the state media sit on the panel, chaired by a state-employed journalist and the lone figure is from the private media. As you look, you want to know exactly what you are seeing. Is it for real? Do these state underlings believe what they say?
I remind you that Rupert Roopnaraine said that in Zimbabwe, control and domination of the State media is far thinner than what obtains in Guyana. I didn’t look at the entire programme. I saw one of the panelists and he reminded me of what eventually becomes of dictatorial leaders – they fall into disgrace. He was on NCN (in April 2010) and announced as a news item that Freddie Kissoon was attacked on North Road.
This he did just minutes before I was actually assaulted. People knew I was doused with a miasmic substance even before I was. In fact, concerned colleagues at this newspaper rushed to the scene when they heard the news. It took them some time to get to me and when they did, the attack had just occurred. Here is the part of the viciousness that was hilarious.
In front of Kaieteur News senior reporter, Dale Andres and social activist, Mark Benschop, the CID guy at Alberttown station said; “Who am I going to talk to at NCN? That is a big place, you wouldn’t know who to talk to.”
The question is, of course, whether these people are fooling around and spreading propaganda as part of their oligarchic duties or they believe that they are righteous souls running a democratic government with a mischievous opposition that is simply driven by mischief-creation.
There is some basic truth to the latter. Many of them have become permanent victims of Lucy. History has shown that inside a dictatorship, are humans so far away from actual events that even when they fall they cannot believe it is for real. In other words, they were never part of the real world we live in
