Permitting lawlessness

Nov 03, 2011 Editorial

There is a level to which political parties could sink as they vie for the leadership of the country. Some personal attacks become par for the course, but only as these relate to morality. For example, politicians have been known to call each other thieves and accuse each other of varying levels of dishonesty.
In the old days some were accused of being the progeny of questionable paternity. Many politicians had their opponents exposing their foibles but nothing was ever intended to do incalculable harm. For the most part whatever was said was intended to create humour among those who gathered to listen.
There was a limit to how far people would go. Talking about people’s wives and children were not allowed; politicians did not make fun of people’s disabilities. Certain subject areas were taboo. There was no need to deceive the electorate and in any case, once the potential voter discovered the deception the speaker would lose credibility.
Today, there has been a frightening change in approach on the political campaign trail. There has been a deliberate attempt to distort history and to besmirch people’s character. And this is most blatant in areas where people are not known for their ability to reason or to make informed decisions. It is not that these people are semi-literate or otherwise. Rather it is because these people are those who are fiercely loyal.
Over the past few weeks the campaign trail has been littered with vitriolic attacks on people’s character. There was the attack on David Granger, that he should accept responsibility for killing two men at the Number 63 toll station. The attacks were serious enough to merit responses, some designed to correct any misrepresentation.
Since then these Attacks have become more worrying. There have been open attacks against sections of the news media. Today, reporters are being branded vultures and carrion crows. Political supporters have taken to respond to the labels. At one rally media operatives nearly came under attack because one individual had taken up the cudgel of the person calling reporters vultures and carrion crows.
Now we have politicians branding every woman who lived prior to 1992 as people who were forced to prostitute themselves because of the shortages created by the prevailing economic conditions. This is so far removed from the truth that it boggles the mind that politicians can create such images and then peddle them as fact.
Indeed dishonesty forms part of every political campaign because the aim is to get voters on one side or the other. But when these acts of deception spark anger one must be careful that one does not cause a spark to ignite.
The Media Monitoring Unit has been active in monitoring broadcasts that threaten to incite or to cause public disorder. In fact, one Presidential Advisor was quick to accuse the media of acting in a manner not too dissimilar from those that operated in Rwanda and sparked genocide. In this case the media organizations that she target were all privately owned.
The reality is that the state-owned and controlled media are the architects of misinformation, distortions of facts and even provokers of anger. The indiscretions of these state-controlled and state-supported media houses appear to be ignored. This is where the problem lies.
The nation was regaled with a private conversation that was recorded under clandestine circumstances. Hat conversation, as is the wont of people in their private moments, contained a number of expletives. There is a law that governs the use of expletives at certain times of the day on public television. The state-sponsored television ignored this law and it seems to have done so with impunity.
People in Guyana have grown accustomed to the fact that there are two laws, one for supporters of the government and another for the rest of society. Of interest is the fact that the Media Monitoring Unit has no powers of sanction. All it could do is to note the infractions. There is no longer an Advisory Committee on Broadcasting and the Minister of Information, in the person of President Bharrat Jagdeo is not likely to move against a media house that supports his administration, unconditionally.
The nation is therefore being pushed to accept, as was eh case in Animal Farm, that some are more equal than others. It is this that has created the ethnic insecurity and there is nothing being done at this time to remove such suspicions. It is no wonder that the international community has from time to time proclaimed that Guyana is a country in crisis.

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