The truth is not to be trifled with

Apr 15, 2014 Editorial

One would expect that in these days of the myriad electronic gadgets there would be fewer problems with quoting people. However, in Guyana it would seem that political expediency negates anything that the electronic media could concoct.
In days gone by people have been accused of saying many things and some of the accusations have come down through the ages as gospel. For example, there is the saying that the love of money is the root of all evil. This has been corrupted to ‘Money is the root of all evil’. And such corruptions could be understood especially when they deal with issues.
However, when they deal with people it is another matter. In this Holy Week, some two thousand years later people are still quibbling about what Jesus the Christ said on the cross. The popular saying is that He did say, “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?” But there are scholars who are contending that the actual words got lost in the translation. One scholar actually says that what Jesus the Christ said was “My power, My power, you have forsaken me,”
Whatever the case it could have been a question of who heard what. In the Scriptures it is actually written that some people believed that Jesus the Christ was calling out to Elijah. Those things are unlikely today given the myriad microphones available to pick up every sound.
On Monday, General Secretary of the ruling People’s Progressive Party decided to repeat something that was first said by President Donald Ramotar during last week, that David Granger, the Leader of the main Opposition coalition and Leader of the People’s National Congress, actually said that Guyana was fuelled by a drug economy.
Indeed, Granger was asked whether he did say such a thing. He denied then proceeded to read the transcript of what he actually said. “I said public security crisis will not correct itself. Narco-trafficking is the engine of growth that is driving this country’s high rates of money laundering, gun running, execution type murders and armed robberies.
“Violent crime is scaring foreign investors, driving away the educated elites, undermining economic growth and impeding social development.”
That was Granger on Friday. His comments then were on record as were the earlier comments to which President Donald Ramotar referred and pronounced on before calling on Granger to apologise. There are many things wrong here. Perhaps there was someone who wanted to score political points and saw an opportunity to mislead the Head of State.
But then again, it might have been a case of someone not clearly understanding what Granger said. This is not uncommon given the decline on academic standards and could be forgiven. What cannot be forgiven is reluctance of people to ensure that they are correct whenever they quote someone.
One cannot expect the President to go to the records to ensure that he is being fed correct information. He pays a lot of people to do his research. If they provide faulty research then he needs to fire some of them. Money is a scarce commodity.
However, for the Minister of Home Affairs to repeat the incorrect allegation is a travesty. Of course, there is the issue of political gamesmanship. It is nice to remind one’s constituents that the political opposition is disrespectful of them. And there would be people who could not care less what Granger says. If the President says that he is disrespectful, then he is.
And it is here that we need to be conscious of the society in which we live. We must also be aware of the way we want history to record us. If Clement Rohee, the Home Affairs Minister wants to be remembered as a serious person he would not behave as though the truth is what he perceives it to be.
He tries to be knowledgeable of all things related to his area of control. But deliberate distortions will not stand him in good stead when history examines his contribution to the political development.

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The truth is not to be trifled with

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