Scare tactics can lead to serious consequences

Apr 16, 2015 Editorial

Scare tactics are being used to garner votes during the upcoming elections. This is something that was once done extensively in small communities where landed people wanted to maintain control over the tenants. It was intended to make the people feel that they are better off where they are, that to take any step away from this path would be detrimental to their very existence.
However, as civilisation progressed, the rulers found that it was futile to introduce fear tactics into any election campaign. Of course, as far back as the Second World War, people in the various countries that comprised the allies and the axis forces set about instilling in their peoples the need to fear the other.
Adolph Hitler in Germany, for example, preached that the Jews were responsible for all the ills that befell the German people and that the solution rested with eliminating the Jews. He was successful because the German people actually believed him. History has proven that Hitler was so wrong.
Today in Germany, the Jews are the people who have helped lift the country out of the ruins that the war left behind.
Similar scare tactics led to the genocide in Rwanda. A most despicable use of radio led to the slaughter of hundreds who merely happened to be of a different tribe than the rulers. The message was that this other tribe would make life a living hell for those currently in power. It worked because the reaction was for the rulers to attack helpless people with guns and cutlasses. To this day the Rwanda massacre is considered the most horrendous in living memory.
Sri Lanka was another case in point. Again there was the perception that the Tamils were superior to the more docile Sinhalese. The conflict was horrendous because again there was the slaughter.
Now we come to Guyana where the ruling party is attempting to use similar tactics. Of course, there is not the drive for violence and this is so because the conflict would not be tribal. Both parties comprise members of every ethnicity in the country. In some cases, relatives straddle the divide, being members of both of the major political parties.
What is the scare tactic? The threat of military rule. Guyana has never known a military intervention against the government except during the pre-independence days when Guyana was struggling for its independence. Since then there has been an army that has never shown an inclination to accede to power.
However, the ruling People’s Progressive Party is preaching the message that the opposition is stocking its ranks with ex-military officers and ranks. But even before that accusation the ruling party has not been happy with the fact that the leader of the opposition has been a military leader. It never took into consideration that people still have lives outside the military.
For, example, in every developed country, military service is compulsory. In the United States, every person is expected to serve the country by way of the military. Some of the leaders in Government had military careers but that did not mean that they would stage a military coup against the elected government.
In the United Kingdom again, the leaders invariably had military careers. Just recently, the world was regaled with the military exploits of members of the royal family. In South America where there have been military governments there are many, even in the elected governments who have military experience but the threat of coups is almost nonexistent.
So for the ruling party to go about telling people that the presence of former military men is a recipe for disaster is not only irresponsible but also dangerous. What is there to stop the people from taking things into their own hands and attack members of the opposition?
And for its part, the government has embraced former military men. There is the head of the Disaster Relief Committee, senior people in the Ministry of Home Affairs, people in the Office of the President, people in the diplomatic services and people in other aspects of the public service.
Of course, the PPP General Secretary offered the excuse that the government is in power and therefore has that right; that the opposition wants to get into power.

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Scare tactics can lead to serious consequences

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