Thin Skins: Thick Whips

Nov 15, 2010 Editorial

If a writer of fiction wanted to illustrate the pettiness of local officialdom, he would never have concocted the ridiculous scenario that unfolded in the canal outside the home of columnist of this newspaper, Freddie Kissoon.
Too far-fetched, he would have shrugged. No one would believe it. Who would allow that if the government’s D&I workers are cleaning a weed-infested canal they would leave untouched, the portion abutting the yard of one of the most vociferous critic of the government purely by serendipity?
Well certainly not the average Guyanese, especially after viewing photos of the duckweed patch in question that was left in pristine condition with laser-like surgical precision.
The explanation of the subject minister Robeson Benn only served to heighten the surreal nature of the exercise. The workers, he claimed, were converging from opposite ends of the canal and by sheer coincidence reached Mr Kissoon’s property lines at the end of their working day.
Two sets of workers – not as part of any plan – cease working at exactly, precisely on the boundaries of the property – not a foot away, not a foot within. One wonders at the probability of this event occurring purely by chance. A billion to one?
The untouched patch of duckweed was not more than possibly fifty feet and it could not have taken two teams of workers more than twenty minutes to clear it.
Which foreman would allow his workers to leave such a small piece of work that would necessitate a work crew returning for another day? If this were the case, then such a foreman deserves to be suspended. Representatives of the government have stoutly denied that orders for the petty punitive gesture came from them.
For the sake of argument let us say that was the case. (And it is not easy to make this argument, given the level of vitriol that has been hurled towards Mr Kissoon by officials of the government – up to and including the President of Guyana.) It then meant that someone in authority with the work crews made the decision to spite Mr Kissoon.
But this explanation is possibly even more frightening than if some big wig had given the order. For it implies that there are individuals out there that are prepared to work with malice against a journalist who is a critic of the government in general and the President in particular.
Why would they do this? It would be exactly because critics of the government – especially the ones outside the official political opposition – have been so caricatured by officials of the government as practically enemies of the state.
The danger comes from the very polarised nature of our politics that spew out partisans who take the strong language of their leaders very seriously and are prepared to take matters into their own hands.
And this is the great danger that threatens our fledgling democracy: leaders defining its critics as “enemies” rather than accepting that criticism of governmental policies by citizens that consider them wrong or misguided is the latter’s duty.
A democracy, we learn by rote, is “government of the people, for the people and by the people”. We the people have elected the government of the day to guide the ship of state on our behalf. How can we not let the government know if we believe they are steering us off course?
Democracy is different from, and preferred to, dictatorships for the simple reason that it has become an article of faith – after centuries of hard lessons – that the opinions of the collectivity is invariably more grounded that that of the monolithic ruler. The people, after all, can be assumed to know best, where the shoe pinches.
Our tragedy is that while our leaders mouth the words about “democracy” it remains just that – words. Since our independence, we have never been given the opportunity to ever let the people become involved in the day to day decisions that affect their lives.
In our view, criticism can only make our democracy stronger. Let a thousand flowers bloom!

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