Naipaulian creatures and pygmoid dictators in a Shakespearian comedy

Dec 07, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Last Wednesday’s sitting of Parliament which was specifically called into session to deal with opposition business was the third in sixteen years under the PPP.

That will work out to be one in every five years. Forbes Burnham was in power for twenty-one years and there were more than four sittings of “Members’ Day.”

This is the very PPP that spent almost three decades fighting both on the parliamentary level and in the violent arena (the burning of estate canes and the shooting of a policeman to death at the Corentyne toll station) for a democratic parliament. Where is the democratic parliament?

This is a party that spent almost three decades lamenting the abuse of state media by the government of the day. What is the state media like today?

That question can be answered by what happened in Parliament last Wednesday. The PPP voted against the permission of other television channels to take their signals to Linden, leaving residents there with only NCN transmission.

The Naipaulian creatures of self hate and the pygmoid autocrats in control of this poor land are so obsessed with their own chauvinistic bombast that they cannot see the Kafkaesque pessimism that they have created in this country that is taking the society down the vortex of destruction.

If the tragedy wasn’t so agonizing in the Parliament last Wednesday, their Shakespearian comedy could have been classified as the worst manifestation of political asininity since parliament as a source of power was invented in England in the 13th century.

Here is a government that tells the nation that it will not allow residents of Linden to see the other television channels, only NCN. There is no logic to this. The Naipaulian creatures and pygmoid dictators that wield power in this country are incredibly irrational.

Linden has a mere 10,000 voters. What sense does it make to withhold other channels from them when the PPP never wins Georgetown at local and general elections and Georgetown has over 200,000 voters?
It makes more sense to restrict other signals from Georgetowners. Why Linden only?

Secondly, what can the other television stations tell Linden that they do not already know from reading Kaieteur News and the Stabroek News?

Thirdly, is it not nasty discrimination in that residents of Buxton, Agricola, Emnore, Eccles, Leonora etc., can see the more than fourteen television channels that are available but Lindeners can only see one?

Has the Government got some intelligence from the security forces that indicate that Linden will be a new Buxton if the state allows channels 6, 9, 28 and others to beam to the mining town?

We come now to the comedy of errors and the asinine side of dictatorship. Minutes after voting down the right of Linden to have more signals, the very people who did that told the Parliament that they are now ready to open up radio and television spectrum to private applicants. What a macabre sense of power these Naipaulian creatures and pygmoid autocrats have.

If the Government of Guyana is going to allow investors to open radio and television stations then how can you in the same breath, maintain the NCN monopoly in Linden? This is so facetious and absurd.

How can you tell citizens who live on Regent Street that they cannot enter Robb Street and while you lay down that law, at the same time, you pass another law that allows all citizens to travel on any road or street they want to?

The only way there can be some commonsense in this contradiction is if in freeing up radio and television licenses, the Government applies a condition that the signals must not reach Linden. This is the only explanation that is available as to what transpired in Parliament last Wednesday.

But there may not be a contradiction at all. The absurdity and foolishness were there in Parliament for all to see. But there may be a little stratagem the Naipaulian creatures and pygmoid dictators had up their sleeves. Who says that permission will be given to have more transmissions be it radio and/or television?

The announcement was made in Parliament last Wednesday and it began and ended right there. The opening up of the radio spectrum died the very moment that its life was proclaimed. This nation will hear no more of it before 2011.

That sounds like fatalism. But there are choices to be made by those who want freedom and justice in Guyana.

The new American Ambassador must be pressed into putting conditions of good governance on the Government before it collects American money.

At the time of writing, President Jagdeo had just returned home from Washington, seeking American money, of course.

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