Sucking up to so-called analysts

Aug 05, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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President Jagdeo has again made reference to me in one of his public speeches, this time in his delivery on Saturday at the PPP’s congress.

I have always kept my evaluation of Mr. Jagdeo analytical. I have never used personal semantics when assessing his administrative outputs, politics and competence.

He has, on a few occasions, been unprofessional in describing me. He openly attributed the word “sleaze ball” to my name at one of his press conferences.

At the PPP’s congress last Saturday, his references to me were not exactly elegant. But let’s get to the point. I suspect Mr. Jagdeo’s impatience with me has to do with my ethnicity and unstained political history.

No one can accuse me of ever being on the side of wrong government in the past. My contribution is well documented by the Mirror newspaper that carried my struggle on its front page with my photograph in its January 4, 1979 issue.

I am not from the “other side,” but come from the “side” where the PPP constituencies are located. This makes it harder for Mr. Jagdeo and his PPP colleagues, because, perhaps those constituents read me.

One newspaper has Mr. Jagdeo as saying: “Sometimes, our comrades suck-up to these so-called analysts.” Another quotes him as saying: “Sometimes, some of our comrades succumb to these.” By “these” he meant the writings of the critics of the Government in the newspaper.

It is unfortunate that Mr. Jagdeo doesn’t see the Guyanese reality in its totality. One can refuse to write about the positive achievements of a Government.

This cannot be equated with one’s writings on factual occurrences within a Government, occurrences that are negative, profane and cruel.

The media did not invent the twisting of intelligence to justify the Iraqi war. The media did not invent the torture of prisoners in Iraq.

The American President may loathe them for their constant battering of him, but he cannot accuse them of inventions. This is the reality that either escapes Mr. Jagdeo, or he doesn’t want to see it.

Many of the wrong, and even nasty and perverted things this Government has done were not created by the newspaper columnists, the people Mr. Jagdeo call pseudo-intellectuals and/or the private media. They emerged from the Government of Guyana.

I believe that when the President intoned that PPP members accept some of the mistaken analyses of the Government’s critics, he means that they probably came up to him and asked him about things they read about. No doubt, they picked up these items from newspaper commentaries, editorials and the news.

But are they not factual? The list is phenomenally long. To enumerate them would take volumes.

Mr. Jagdeo may be right when he responds to his comrades by telling them to ignore the bad issues and concentrate on the good things happening.

But what if his comrades find the wrong things disturbing? The disturbing events never seem to stop.

Mr. Jagdeo takes his fellow citizens for granted. He takes his own PPP supporters for granted. His party supporters are not robots.

They want answers to things that affect their lives. They are curious about strange developments, the answers for which no one knows.

When the press does its work in the absence of these answers, Mr. Jagdeo is annoyed. There is a double-annoyance here. He is irritated because the media speculates.

He is irked because his party supporters find the critical analyses of his government by political commentators plausible. He cries out that some of his comrades “succumb” to these analyses.

But why should they not, when the assessments are based on facts? Isn’t it a fact that the names of the investors of a large hotel complex are not known?

PPP members would not have to read the Stabroek News and the Kaieteur News to find out who they are if Mr. Jagdeo would make the announcement. They read these papers for answers that they do not get from the Government.

Let us look at one instance that separates the actors in the Guyana Government from many other decent administrations around the world.

I did a column comparing the French President, Sarkozy, and our Head of State when they both made major addresses to their individual countries at the same time.

The first word that came out of the mouth of Mr. Sarkozy was an apology for mistakes he made during his first year in office.

Here in Guyana, our leaders find it an act of self-immolation to say sorry. The word “sorry” is a terrifying print for our rulers.

What our ruling politicians do not understand is that respect will be awarded by the nation when these leaders act as democrats and show respect for their subjects.

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