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Minister Manickchand’s semantic evasion

Apr 09, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I do not read anything written by Minister Priya Manickchand. I don’t want to hear anything this lady has to say about the abuse of women by men. The attitude of this Minister to domestic abuse is appallingly hypocritical. Minister Manickchand’s stance on the complaints of President Jagdeo’s wife, Varshnie Singh, is shockingly poor for a country’s Minister who holds the portfolio that includes women’s rights.
She was quoted as saying the accusations of Varshnie Singh against Mr. Jagdeo lay in the realm of the private.
Let us get into the area of what is public and what is private. No need to go into a lecture on that. Most lawyers, journalists and scholars know when an issue is public material or is a private matter.
A very eminent citizen accumulates thousands of empty match boxes. His maid thinks he is eccentric.
That is none of the world’s business. One day he came home and found the castle he built with his play things lying on the floor. He accused his maid of the damage but she denied it.
Each day he torments her about it and tells her to confess and if she doesn’t he will use his status to see that she never gets employed again.
She felt she was abused and informed the media which carried the story. She explained to the press that this admired personality would harass her everyday to confess to a peccadillo that she didn’t commit.
At that point, the citizen’s behaviour becomes a public matter but even here there is a problematic grey area in journalism. Facts have two classifications- dependent physical existence and independent physical existence. The life of a fact that has dependent physical existence rests on external variables.
For example, an automobile’s function is based on external factors of which gas is perhaps the paramount  – no gas, no movement. The raison d’ètre of the car does not exist because the purpose of transportation is nullified by the absence of the external variable.
As opposed to this is the rider on a horse. Both entities have independent existence. The horse can bolt away. The rider can ditch the horse and run the distance.
In journalism the observance of this principle is important. Here is a hypothetical example. I offered David De Caires when he criticised me for not naming Mr. Glenn Lall in an incident involving the then Trade Commissioner of the GRA, Lambert Marks, in July 2003.
A man holds a press conference and says Michael Jackson molested his son. The life of that fact is dependent on the man. He gets up the next day, changes his story, said he was under drugs and he was sorry.
Journalists have to be careful when they broadcast or print facts that have dependent physical existence. For me the reporter who attended that press conference should say that a world famous singer is facing an accusation.
Jackson should not be named. When the police interview Jackson and/or searches his house, that fact stands on its own fulcrum. Jackson’s name can then be published because a scientific fact occurred – the police went to Jackson’s home and searched it. The police didn’t take a drug that caused them to hallucinate and to imagine that they tumbled up Jackson’s house.
Ms. Singh could have imagined the things she accused the President of doing to her. This is dependent physical existence.
Her tale went intro the public domain when President Jagdeo refused to deny the statements. His position was that he was not going to comment.
It leaves the commentator then to decide whether Ms. Singh had experienced what she described.
At that point, the Minister could have said that she does not believe Ms. Singh. Or she could have walked the diplomatic path with a no-comment response. Both of these attitudes were understandable.
She was entitled to either believe or disbelieve or stay silent. But to seek refuge in a semantic evasion was unbecoming. Only in Guyana could President Jagdeo and Ms Manickchand remain in office.

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