Evil epistemology

Apr 28, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The future looks in doubt if the PPP gets back into power. We have reached a stage in Guyana where after 19 years in power under the PPP, Guyana’s traditional fragile ethnic balance is exacerbated with each passing day.
We have treason accused waiting for their trial, and they are all from one ethnic community.
We have organizations demanding shared governance and they represent a certain ethnic community.
We have the constant threat of the ERC (whose legal existence this writer does not accept) to investigate certain citizens for ethnic incitement and the alleged offenders are from the same race group as those stated above.
We have a central trade union body whose head publicly used the words “economic genocide” to describe the policies of the Guyana Government in relation to certain race groups. We have an outstanding citizen in Tacuma Ogunseye who is being accused by state officials of racial rhetoric. This columnist encounters lamentations of race discrimination almost on a daily basis. Is it their imagination? I don’t think so.
Where are we going after 45 years of Independence? The answer is nowhere.
Most frightening is that when you examine the epistemology of the party that has been in power for nineteen years, you see a form of knowledge in which Guyana is divided into an evil part and a virtuous section, and this kind of epistemology informs the policies of the government.
It is the most dangerous situation for a country to be in and there is no reason to believe that this essentially flawed knowledge of Guyana by PPP leaders will change if the PPP wins the forthcoming general elections.
When the leaders of a troubled polity can reduce their knowledge of their country into we the good guys versus them the evil ones then reconciliation, dialogue and political stability are virtually impossible to achieve.
There is no limit to the power of this horrible psychology. It is not only President Jagdeo that embodies this contorted psyche, it is the collective soul of the PPP that is afflicted with this epistemological evil.
When asked last week what is the difference between he and the PNC’s presidential candidate, Mr. Donald Ramotar simply and succinctly said. “I belong to a democratic party, he does not.” Here is a straightforward case of knowledge whose binary is bad versus good.
There is absolutely no way in the deconstruction of knowledge the PPP can be accepted a democratic party. Mr. Jagdeo’s conceptualizations certainly make for a pessimistic nation.
He told some of his party members in Berbice recently, “Look who edits the Kaieteur News, Adam Harris, a man who once edited the PNC’s newspaper, New Nation.”
Here is the evil epistemology on full display. What is Mr. Jagdeo saying? It is the binary of bad and good.
Everything about the PNC was and is terrible, we the PPP are the opposites. The PNC’s newspaper is bad, our newspaper, the Mirror is good. Notice must be taken of the fact that Mr. Jagdeo didn’t accuse Mr. Harris of being dishonest or of a criminal offence.
Mr. Harris is simply not a good person because he once edited the PNC’s newspaper. The logical deduction here is that the New Nation was a bad newspaper but not the PPP’s newspaper therefore who edited the PNC’s newspaper cannot be an acceptable person.
What is demonic about this kind of knowledge is its completeness. If the PNC was and is a terrible Guyanese organisation then it is logical to say that its world has to be of the same questionable cloth.
The PNC’s world would include those Guyanese people who support it and all those districts and villagers throughout the lands where the PNC has its strength. And which sections of the society have traditionally voted for the PNC? Here is where the danger lies. Was this evil epistemology the reason behind the location of the Berbice Bridge?
Quite a lot of people in this country and the Diaspora take the view that the PPP Government chose not to locate the other end of the bridge at New Amsterdam because of political/ethnic considerations.
This writer accepts that viewpoint. The PPP cannot have a certain type of epistemology and it remains locked up in its collective head.
That is not possible in the real world. As the administrators of the country, that type of knowledge has to find an outlet in policy-making.
One example is the location of the Berbice Bridge. When an organisation does not accept the essence of freedom and it dominates a country, tragedy has to follow. And Guyana is an evergreen tragedy.

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