Democracy inside three memoranda

Jul 26, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I read the Mirror newspaper every week (online of course; I would not take my money to buy that thing). I do not read the Chronicle. For many, that would be a fault of mine.

If you are a social analyst, you have to read all the newspapers. I eschew the Chronicle because its publication of Governmental items is also contained in the Kaieteur News and the Stabroek News.

The new schools, fancy bridges and all that jazz that GINA puts out in the Chronicle, readers find in the two independent dailies and the Mirror.

President Jagdeo’s speeches are also carried in the two established dailies. Why read the Chronicle then? I have a particular dislike for the Chronicle for two reasons.

One is that there have been people put in charge of it since 1992 who lack any conceivable talent in journalism. You could run a pro-government newspaper but you could also make it appear respectable.

The Chronicle, since 1992, but particularly the past seven years, has been an atrocious media house that is completely devoid of any journalistic decency.

The Chronicle had more credibility, image and dignity when the PNC was in office. Now here is comparison between the PNC and PPP in which the PNC has come out better.

It has to do with competence in political leadership, ingenuity in management and brilliance in political style.

There can hardly be any doubt that Forbes Burnham, and Desmond Hoyte to a lesser extent, used the Chronicle to serve the purpose of the government.

No one should be that naïve to think otherwise. But the method is what allowed the Chronicle to preserve some form of appearance.

Former Commissioner of Police, Laurie Lewis, in his recent interview with me said that the difference with this regime and the rule of Burnham was that Burnham was suave (Lewis repeated that word three times).

What Lewis meant is that Burnham got away with wrong things because the methods were finely finessed.
Not so with the present Government. All these people could resort to are vulgar and crude tactics.

This is how they run the Chronicle. This brings us to the second reason for my disgust with that newspaper.
Let us return to Burnham.

Burnham would have called up a few National Service personnel, public sector managers and party functionaries and said this to them: “Look ya’ll want to see this government fall?

If it falls wuh gun happen to all the perks ya’ll getting? Who put ya’ll there in the first place. Go out and defend yuh government. Write letters in the press defending the socialist revolution.”

And they would have done just that. So great is the PPP, so great is Mr. Jagdeo’s stewardship, yet the people of Guyana are bombarded daily in the Chronicle with a most nauseating situation.

Everyday the paper turns out the most poetic praise for Mr. Jagdeo and the most venomous condemnation of PPP’s critics and all the signatories are false names.

This thing is utterly sickening and disgusting. And the people at the apex of power enjoy this gyration of the jumbies.

I read the Mirror because it is more important to me than the Chronicle. It gives you an insight into the collective mind of the PPP.

It tells you where Guyana is heading because of the assessment of politics in Guyana, the US and the world by the PPP leaders in the Mirror.

There are columnists in the Mirror (who are PPP leaders) that take a weekly dig at the US. These anti-American perceptions are not always wrong.

The US is not a receptacle of over-flowing democracy but its democracy is superior to Guyana’s under the PPP.

These PPP leaders in the Mirror perform worse than American leaders yet they have the temerity to carry on their weekly anti-American tirade.

Here is the part that sickens the mind of the reader of the Mirror. On Thursday, the world learnt that the US Government authorised the torture of terrorist prisoners.

This was because the American Civil Liberties Union filed for documents under the Freedom of Information Act and got three classified memoranda that detailed US Government involvement in torture. Read this week’s Mirror and you will see the denouncing rage against the US Government.

This is the vexation against the Americans by people who refuse to pass a Freedom of Information Act in their own country. This is the rage of people who refuse to give Guyanese a form of democracy higher than what the US has.

I’ll tell you this; sometimes I feel really, really mad when I read the Mirror to see what these PPP leaders are doing to Guyana. But as Walter Rodney would say, “The struggle goes on”.

Latest News

Democracy inside three memoranda

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show | December, 2nd, 2024

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

The wait is over, all roads lead to KMTC for their Grand Boxing Day...

Xhiya Hercules – flipping the script towards...

Road Warriors, Bent Street, Team Cruel &...

Deol maiden hundred outshines Matthews’ as...

Moraikobai village two days football competition...

BCB thanks cricket fraternity for strong support...

Features/Columnists

Merry Christmas, Ya Filthy Animals!

Breaking the Chains of Poverty: A need for political will

Christmas – reality and possibility

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]

Democracy inside three memoranda

Share this:

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show | December, 2nd, 2024

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Features/Columnists

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]