Would Ram and Hinds care to define authoritarianism?

Jan 08, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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This is a continuation of my reaction to the letter of Christopher Ram denouncing the State’s attitude to Khurshid Sattaur and Nigel Hinds’s missive advocating State appreciation of the work done by Winston Brassington.
In my analysis yesterday, I did not examine the perspective of Hinds, and there was little space to devote to the question on the raid on Sattaur’s home. I did offer to contextualize the circumstances of the State’s action against both men. The elongation follows.
The context is the oligarchic landscape on which both state employees functioned. Ram and Hinds achieve theoretical efficacy once the authoritarian framework is absent. Ram and Hinds fall short because both Sattaur and Brassington were operating inside an authoritarian system.
In the unfolding of the dictatorial system under which they worked one took illegal latitude, the other ventured in political victimization. For this there has to be accountability. To argue against this is to advance the theory of special status in the exercise of power. I know of no such situation. Even Hobbes posited that there were special circumstances under which the maximum leader could be removed.
Aristotle took exception to the invincibility of Plato’s philosophy-king class. Under which theory then are Ram and Hinds submitting the concept of the untouchable and the forgiving?
A caveat is in order before I proceed. I would not engage in any polemic in which a debater insists that a legally elected administration cannot become a dictatorship. There is no such theory. Fareed Zakaria has the best elaboration of how legal elections and democracy are not physiologically intertwined.
Ravi Dev has constantly denied that the Jagdeo regime was dictatorial and his naïve defence was based on the insistence that if a governing party can be voted out of office then how can it be describe as a dictatorship. Such an approach is a complete misunderstanding of the nature of power.
This reply to Ram and Hinds is frameworked in the theory of elected dictatorship. I would classify the Jagdeo regime as having shades of fascitization. Three elements of that fascitization were – the arrogant pursuit of the destruction of the African political economy as best outlined by Lincoln Lewis; the criminalized state as best adumbrated by Clive Thomas and the horrendous decline in the moral standards of the state. It is within this context one has to examine the administration of Sattaur and Brassington.
Khurshid Sattaur’s record as head of GRA would reveal some serious obliviousness to tax evasion and that realm encompasses some very wealthy people. I firmly believe that Christopher Ram is aware of this.
Secondly, Mr. Sattaur used his office to witch-hunt critics of the PPP Government. Three such victims were Glenn Lall, Nigel Hughes and me. Thirdly, there were vast areas of unprofessional conduct. Mr. Ram may want to cite other examples from around the world where the tax chief has five relatives working with him including three of his children, two of whom occupied crucial positions.
Against this background is there validity for the State to seize documents from the GRA if it suspects that legal inquiries into the operations of the GRA during the tenure of dictatorship will be vitiated by Mr. Sattaur’s conduct? On the surface of both politics and law, I would answer yes. In relation to Mr. Hinds’s advocacy of state recognition of Brassington’s work and the cessation of any attempt to prosecute him, one has to say that such an advocacy is extremely dangerous and invites social collapse.
Unless there is a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, then the State is legally and morally bound to investigate and prosecute citizens who abused power, engaged in financial illegalities or participated in criminal activities against state institutions.
If Mr. Hinds’s plea for Brassington is accepted then how can the State retain viability and credibility? How does it treat a policeman who after forty years of service has been detected as stealing money from the force?
How does it deal with a nurse who after forty years on the job was complicit in organ-selling? How does the cricket board of a country deal with one of its superstars if it finds out he is a rapist?
But there is an equally compelling question – what signal does it send to ruling politicians. Previous rulers committed grievous violations and were pardoned, then why shouldn’t they do the same and argue for similar clemency.
My honest belief is that both Ram and Hinds did not consider the context in which both Sattaur and Hinds served the Government of Guyana. This is where I think their main point of the State’s mistreatment of Sattaur and Brassington falls down.

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