Patriotism and freedom of expression

Feb 11, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

It was Samuel Johnson who warned us about the dangers of false patriotism. In his tract, The Patriot, Johnson noted that a patriot is someone whose public conduct is regulated by one single motive, the love of his country; who, as an agent in parliament, has, for himself, neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but refers everything to the common interest.
He forewarned in that treatise about being deceived by false appearances, since a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities.
When Samuel Johnson later coined the quote, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” he was not condemning the virtue of patriotism. He was warning that sometimes the plea of patriotism can be invoked by those who have ill intentions. In other words, not everyone who calls for patriotism is acting in the common interest.
This past week, we heard accusations that Kaieteur News and Stabroek News had “crossed the line” by carrying an advertisement which called on investors to beware of investing in Guyana and which urged investors to go elsewhere.
The decision of the newspapers to carry the advertisement was described as unpatriotic and a violation of freedom of expression. Some even went as far as claiming that the advertisement – and by implication those who carried it – had violated the sacred canons of freedom of expression.
A call for investors to go elsewhere cannot be deemed as unpatriotic. There are persons in Guyana who share the view that Guyana should limit private investment. There are socialists in our midst who believe that foreign private capital is here to rob us of our wealth and it is best that is kept away.
There are still some ‘Burnhamites’ in our midst who believe that private investment should be discouraged and that the state’s involvement in economic activities should be emphasized.
In May of 1975, Forbes Burnham, addressing an event organized by the Jaycees in Linden, lambasted the free enterprise system, labelled its practitioners as enemies of the people and called on the Jaycees to either cut ties with its parent body in the United States or reject one of its objectives, which contends that economic justice can best be won by free men in free enterprise.
Burnham was being far more reactionary than those advertisements which called for investors to beware of investing in Guyana and urging them to take their investments elsewhere.  Yet no one called Burnham’s attack on private enterprise, and by implication private investment, as being unpatriotic. They dared not. According to declassified documents, it did, however, confirm in the eyes of the United States, Burnham’s ideological leanings.
There is nothing unpatriotic about someone being against private investment. There is nothing unpatriotic about warning investors to beware of investing in Guyana. There are many people who want to invest in Guyana, but when they hear the horror stories of corruption and crime, they change their minds.
The second line of attack was to criticize the Stabroek News and the Kaieteur News for carrying the advertisement. It was stated that these two newspapers had “crossed a line” which protects their right to freedom of expression.
This viewpoint, which was also supported by at least one government Minister, is balderdash. Those who are parroting it are failing to make the distinction between economic freedom and freedom of expression.
Economic freedom is not a protected right. It is a liberal concept. The advertisements can be said to be against economic freedom, but not freedom of expression.
Freedom of expression gives everyone the right to communicate his or her views, except where those views are detrimental to national defence, public safety, public order, public morality, public health or unless they excite hostility, provoke ethnic, racial and religious strife, hatred of others or are defamatory.
The advertisements do none of the above, and therefore have not crossed any “line”. In fact, if Kaieteur News and Stabroek News had failed to carry the advertisements, they could have been accused of denying freedom of expression to those who placed them.
If the public wants an example of an action which “crossed a line” in terms of freedom of expression, they should refer to the statement by the former President of Guyana Desmond Hoyte, who called for a boycott of the Guyana Chronicle. This was an attack on a specific media house, aimed at crippling it financially, and therefore impacting on its ability to publish.
Kaieteur News and Stabroek News had every right to carry those advertisements. In carrying the ads, these newspapers ensure that those with unorthodox views are not censored. And while most may not agree with a call for investors to beware of Guyana, they should defend the right of those who feel this way to say so.

---

---