What does Ambassador Hardt think of Gail Teixeira?

May 23, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

One of the most tragic things about absolute power is how it combines horror and stupidity. Naked power is a horrible thing in that it destroys. But strangely, the process of stupidity inheres in dictatorial power. The possessor of untamed power is so smitten by invincibility that situational sensitivity as a factor in leadership qualities is lost.
An authoritarian exerciser of power will say the most stupid thing about the goodness of their rule and governance, totally oblivious to whom that they are speaking, and the situation around them. Unable to comprehend the reality around them, an oligarch believes he/she can mouth off any nonsense which bears no resemblance to the truth and it will be believed.
So possessed of absolute power, oligarchs believe that the society will bend to them. Invincibility and stupidity are the chief characteristics of dictatorship. I believe that when Bharrat Jagdeo asked Roger Luncheon to go to court to prove that I libeled him in one of my columns, Jagdeo believed Luncheon would be accorded such sultanate treatment because the society must bow to the sultan.
It turned out different, because invincibility is a mirage that only dictators cannot see. Dictators cannot see anything that is real. Luncheon had the roughest cruise liner voyage he ever undertook. His trip lasted a week. He ended up admitting that at the time of giving evidence there wasn’t an African Guyanese citizen residing in Guyana that had the qualifications to be an ambassador.
So rough were the seas that Luncheon’s ship sailed that “The Donald” publicly admitted in his official address to his party congress in August 2013 that Jagdeo’s libel hurt the PPP in the 2011 general elections. Well, with local government elections around the corner and a general poll too, how is “The Donald” going to cope seeing that the libel trial is still going on?
Talking about trials, what is taking place in a New York courtroom in the New GPC libel against Kaieteur News is compulsory reading for social analysts in this country. That case is a graphic example of shattered infallibility. New GPC sued saying that Kaieteur News libeled it, thus hurting its business prospects. The lawyer simply said; well show us how your markets and profits have been affected. The judge agreed.
This was a case of transferring invincibility in Guyana to the United States. In this country, hundreds of powerful PPP people and their acolytes will fill up the court registry with libel affidavits. After all, knowing who they are, they will win. Who dare try to insult the sultans of Guyana? The sultans are omnipotent and must get their way. The sultanate had a rude awakening in a New York court.
Let’s put Gail Teixeira in the picture now. Of course, Ms. Teixeira is not the only one given to a denial of reality. All in the PPP sultanate do. “The Donald”, “The Goat Man, and “the Bearded Slow Talker” are the chief exponents. I will leave out the “Swimming Pool Bath Man,” Mr. Neil Kumar, who is so far gone that “The Donald” is damaging his government every day by keeping him.
Last week, Ms. Teixeira, on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, said that the media’s role is not to be “for or against government.” It was a good thing that the US Ambassador had a strong heart. Reacting to what Teixeira mouthed off, the Ambassador told his audience he agreed with the lady, but there was a problem with her opinion. The taboo of not being for or against government must also include the state media.
Ambassadors are instructed at all times to be cool and to use nice diplomatic language. But surely Brent Hardt must have been lacerated with anger. He has been living here for three years now and has seen the horrible, terrible, depraved and abominable level of sycophancy to which Teixeira and company have dragged down the state media to where they have become footcloths in service of the PPP.
Ambassadors are instructed to remain monuments of patience and try to remain calm in the face of the crazy things the governments do in the countries they serve. But the US Ambassador must have jumped when he saw those words from Teixeira. We will never know what went through his mind because he wouldn’t tell us. But I guess we can imagine.
It was Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine of APNU who publicly said on television that in an authoritarian climate like Zimbabwe, state control of the media is far less rigid than what we have in Guyana. Imagine that!

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What does Ambassador Hardt think of Gail Teixeira?

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