Every day you see the mediocrity that has descended on Guyana

Jan 30, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

One of the dangerous things about a poor country that is wrecked by social and political decay is the loss of human resources. Good, intelligent, mature, educated, talented, skillful, innovative, creative, learned, pioneering people leave and seek a secure future in more civilized countries.
The exodus becomes dangerous because the society is left with Pavlovian, sycophantic citizens. Those that chose not to be slaves have no access to a pool of rational, critical thinking citizens from which they can draw inspiration. As a consequence, mediocrity envelopes the country and creativity and critical thinking die.
It is the lack of the critical mind that hurts the most. I refer to a column of mine of September 25, 2012 titled, “Every country has corruption, beggars but…” It was a response to a columnist from another newspaper. That commentator wrote that he saw beggars and corruption in Canada and the US and as such he doesn’t know why Guyanese carp on those negatives here rather than look at those very things in places like Canada and the US.
It was one of the most irritating moments in 2012 in my career as a media operative. How can any Guyanese be so unbecoming to make such a poor judgement? I was educated in Canada and I followed American politics since I was a teenager.
Yes, there is corruption in perhaps all countries in the world but to say that Canada and the US do not confront corrupt officials and jail them is shameless barefacedness.
Since the PPP came to power in 1992 there has been no official that has been investigated. Kellawan Lall, Reepu Daman Persaud, and Ganga Persaud among others should long have been disciplined.
That gentleman who wrote that piece should know that as sure as night follows day, no Prime Minister or President in the democratic world that includes the US, Canada, India, the entire European continent and even in authoritarian systems like Cuba and China would have survived the common-law scandal that then President Jagdeo was embroiled in with Ms. Varshnie Singh. Those kind of messy intrigues definitely cost ruling politicians their job.
Last year I faced some criticism over my review of a book an American citizen based in the US wrote on the visa scandal in Guyana involving Thomas Carroll. This was an incompetent work that was badly written and done in a most unscholarly style. Many persons were delighted to read the book about the ocean of money Carroll took to process non-immigrant visas.
What was sad was that because Guyana had lost that section of its population given to critical thinking, a jejune work on Carroll was praised when in fact so much of the Carroll infamy was published in our media at the time. In fact, Carroll’s cooperation statement with the district attorney had more intriguing information than the entire book, yet the author didn’t use Carroll’s confession in his work.
Perhaps the most infamous example of this descent into mediocrity was the gentleman who for years deceived the Guyanese society with false polls. The holes in his operations were gargantuan, yet for years he got away with it. Most shocking was the fact that his polling organization could not be located in any country on Planet Earth and this is in the age of Google. Only a mediocre society would have allowed such a con game to go on uninvestigated.
Journalism in Guyana cannot escape the accusation of mediocrity. I am not referring to the sordid, shackled state media. Some say the answer is training. Maybe! But still the practice of journalism leaves much to be desired especially when you see the type of questions that are never asked of members of a government that is mired in thousands and thousands of financial and political scandals.
Let me say without fear of contradiction, the atrocious mistakes that have marked the two year presidency of Mr. Ramotar should galvanize the press to confront him. Mr. Ramotar’s double standards are sickening but the media let him escape.
Here is a president who publicly said that he cannot tell a private company what fee it should charge for the Berbice Bridge yet this very man has advised West Demerara commuters not to pay a twenty-dollar increase.
Clement Rohee is yet to tell the Guyanese why his visas were suspended for six months. The mediocre press doesn’t ask. But is mediocrity the only factor in relation to the media? Or are they afraid to raise the questions out of fear of being insulted by Rohee and Ramotar? I think I am going to start asking questions at governmental media briefings.

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