Beware the unsavoury at this time

Mar 05, 2020 Editorial

It is reckless and dangerous territory that once some momentum is gathered, assumes all the elements of the runaway. That is, it is largely uncontrollable for an extended period of time, where much damage is inflicted, and which is accompanied by the usual ruin, recrimination, and regret that are now so characteristic of political and elections Guyana.
Fake news is an unhealthy and unwise practice anytime it is introduced into the streams of conversation, contemplation, and conclusion.
As the nation awaits results, these ‘authoritative’ scoops are trash, and should be so dismissed. Nothing positive can come from such gossiping, never intended to be innocent. It is good that the Guyana Press Association (KN Feb 24) has sounded an alarm, as it is timely and cautionary. Do not go there! Let us be smarter and more circumspect are the plain and simple messages.
It is too easy to interpret, convert, and translate fake news for all that is negative and impassioning and disastrous for the peoples of this society. We are a poor society on the doorstep of untold riches, now agonising of results almost foregone in finality.
Why spoil the pending arrival of this glowing moment by delving into and degrading into that which is destructive to this society? It does not need much to drag it down most willingly into the depths of the gutter. In fact, this is a society that seems to relish the dark muck and heavy devouring densities of the gutter.
The appeal of this publication is straightforward: Let us be sensible and not go where we could get singed, and very badly at that.
We know better, at least that is what we think and hope that our brethren in this country, regardless of political and racial affiliations, possess in the quiet places of themselves. After all the public raging and agitating, there is that honest space and place deep within each Guyanese citizen, which says in warning, in good sense: if we go down certain roads, then the destinies waiting would only be of the most undesired variety.
If we cannot utilise the miraculous revolution, resource, and riches of technology through its social media offspring for purposes of the constructive and the uplifting, then we are not helping our party and group, but engaging in the self-defeating.
It is but a short step to deteriorate from rumour and innuendo–and malicious posts and deliberately exaggerated choice of words intended for certain bitter partisan outcomes.
The hard, suspicious, and embittered political and racial tents in this country do not need much to get them started down a bad road, do not require anything so much as a spark to get them going.
For the embers are always present, waiting to be stirred, longing to flame into the incendiary that takes to the edge. This elections season is unprecedented in that it has oil, proven oil, and the fabled riches sure to come from them, contract impoverishment or otherwise.
The presence of oil in such unanticipated commercial quantities has made certifiable and committable madmen of almost all. That same oil has succeeded in contributing the missing volatile ingredient, that inflaming essence, which hurls into states of frenzied and unthinking reckless.
That is imperiling to all in these days graced and imbued with the anonymous, universal, nature of cyberspace and social media platforms. These same platforms provide the perfect cover for the dangerous and the purposeful to function, at will and without detection.
What used to travel by the grapevine of ancient people’s express through word of mouth, now has the energy and speed of electricity. It is instantaneous and it is widespread in the paths that it can carve, like a hurricane operating at full blast.
No Guyanese should need this reminder, but too much electricity surging into narrow channels can incinerate: 30,000 volts have a lethal, inhuman, and final quality about them. None is left untouched or seriously unharmed. If anyone is listening, especially those who are piloting the ships of post-elections plays, let sanity and good sense and sagacity prevail.

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