By KNEWS

Copyright kaieteurnewsonline

Jimmy Kimmel – a call to honest, independent thinking

Sep 30, 2025
Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

Kaieteur News – More frequently nowadays, the thinking is that America is too convulsed to straighten up, too far gone to turn back. I am glad to be given some slivers of rich developments that say otherwise. There’s the saga of Jimmy Kimmel. More commentator than comedian; but a speaker that draws listeners, believers, followers. And condemners.

Kimmel was pushed away. Now, he is back. He must recognise the temper of the times, temper of his language. There’s no surrendering of rights, simply the recognition that his voice has reach, and it can provoke controversy, laughter. He should stick to what he has done well. To add the hostile (or as construed) into the already volatile can make the fragile rivets that hold things together snap at the seams. Like the jesters of old, his first call is to make the powerful laugh through their discomfort.

Their subjects and courts are watching. What was ennobling for me was that when Jimmy Kimmel was struck, so many stood up for not so much what he said, but his right to say so. A few pointed to the primacy of that amendment that’s the first one, and the reason thereto. Freedom of speech is that sacrosanct in America.

I welcome this easing of the battering winds that Kimmel had to endure. There is even greater reception that those who stood up for his right to sacred expression hailed from so many different corners of America, including those who have no use for him. The comedy cast was expected to be mostly in Jimmy Kimmel’s corner. They were.

So, too, the entertainment crowd, which broadcast its share of words, uttered dark warnings. No surprises there. The surprises came from the Republican Quarter. Republican Senators Ted Cruz (Texas) and Rand Paul (Kentucky) took objection to what the U.S. Constitution said shouldn’t be, and what their consciences, notwithstanding their politics, said is wrong, could lead to the unending carousel of tit-for-tat up the road. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska courageously broke ranks and had his say. It is the American Way. No matter how unpleasant, obnoxious, the utterance, so long as no law is violated, then retaliation and restriction cannot be supported.

What can Guyana, a baby democracy at best, learn from developments in America relative to Kimmel’s points of contentiousness? First, the easiest thing in the world is to stay within the tribe, follow the crowd. The flip side is that it reduces to the servile those who manage themselves in such ways. To zombies without mental capacity.

Second, there are times when independence of thought, and liberation of conscience, are so treasured, that there is no iota of patience, nor sufferance, for what is wrong, hence highly unacceptable, in its appearance, and substance. If I can’t be of that, then of what am I about? Third, when national leaders are so feared, or so blindly and cravenly worshipped, then willful blindness, deafness, and speechlessness will be the dominant features in one’s existence. It could be me. The odds are overwhelmingly higher that it will be other Guyanese, and not me. Not when the need is for someone, just one, to stand up, and say it’s dark around here. Let there be light. Any little light that must shine. One flickering candle can lead to another, then another. Look at what Guyanese had.

Mon Repos Market barrage, and a tsunami of denunciation followed. Righteous wrath rising to its fullest height. Regardless of the underpinnings and mystery lapses, it’s how it should be. But where were the outraged voices, choking passions, when a bus stopped in the middle of the wilds, and its occupants were hustled out? Not one voice of objection from the usual objectors. And when political thuggery and hooliganism stalked the campaign trail, why no disowning voices then? Whenever there are two standards of right, then one is of a lesser quality, suspect in its substance. The U.S. has its problems with WIN’s Mohamed.

U.S. adjustment is the new standard. Can Guyanese-be they public or private institutions, political partisan or regular civilian-attempt their own adjustment? With or without national independence, there’s still independence of thought, independence of expression. Or should be. Whither that mentality, that condition? Does it still exist? Where did it go? I shouldn’t look to leaders for answers. I must first stare at myself. When I am trapped by mental slavery, then PhDs, JDs, and DDs mock. The mentally enslaved is a slave. I submit also that the intellectually dishonest is dishonest plain and simple. Cruz, Paul, and Bacon inspire the American inside. Some Guyanese of similar strength could make better Guyanese of others. One honest voice is what’s required. Guyanese either stand for something; or they stand for nothing. Rise and say: here I stand, nothing and no one can move me.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

GHK Lall, honest, independent thinking, Jimmy Kimmel