A nation’s survival depends on the totality of society’s integrity

Jul 04, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – There are institutions in the United States that will generate immense anger from citizens if they do wrong things. They are the associations that govern professional sports, especially basket ball, football and baseball, the airline industry, the big tech companies, the media, hospitals, business companies, the movie industry.
These sectors in the US are viewed as important as any other part of America. The media and people in general will go after them just as they would confront the government over wrong-doing. Guyana should be generally known as the silly society. In Guyana we see the government as the only part of the society that affects the psychology and morality of the total nation.
It is sickening when you read editorials and letters and you see the following, “oh the government must be more transparent, oh, that is not the way government does thing, oh, the government needs to be more accountable, oh, the government should heed the advice given.”
It is not annoying but mentally shattering when you read these statements and you know that other institutions in Guyana are as immoral, perverse, detestable, unaccountable, insensitive, hypocritical, reckless. Yet the government, whether led by PPP, PNC or who else, is the target of 99 percent of the criticism of the citizenry.
There are institutions in this country that we need to put our focus on because their lack of responsibility can destroy Guyana. Yet you do not see the exclamation, “oh they should be more principled, oh, that is unbearable what they have done.” All you can read about is the government’s behaviour.
Do you know how powerful the media is? Society cannot remain functional without the media. Yet Guyana’s has the most jejune and perhaps uninterested school of journalists. No country would allow a body of knowledge to go unrecorded as our journalists. They do not ask crucial questions that have to be asked for the sake of recording history. To date, not one question has been posed to any AFC or WPA leader as to the horrible mistakes they made while in government. No other country has produced sleeping academics as UG. In every other country, the major social issues are publicly analysed by academics but not in Guyana.
One of the most reckless institutions in this country that is destroying this nation is the magistracy. The academic quality of our magistrates is one of the thinnest and tiniest in the entire world. The mediocrity of our magistrates is mind-boggling.
The magistracy will go on to embarrass Guyana internationally because past and present government chose to remain silent. Since talented lawyers do not want to be magistrates, the lawyers who take the job are learned lawyers. So here is what they do. Knowing that they will not survive as lawyers, they find a fixed income in being magistrates.
The result so far has been disastrous for the sanity of the citizenry of Guyana. Three PPP officials a few years ago were charged for assaulting me. The presiding magistrate, Judy Latchman, reminded me that her court is not like the story in the song, “Hotel California” that I frequently mention in my columns is one of my favourite songs.
Guess what Latchman did? In court, she recited the lyrics of the song. In most societies, her sanity would have been a topic in the press. Magistrate Ann McLennan fined a woman convicted of trafficking in people. The law stipulates a prison sentence.
No one wrote, “Oh, these people should not be on the bench, oh what a terribly bad decision.” I did the research. There has not been one editorial in any newspaper on the legal indiscretions of the magistracy in recent memory. Maybe there was one but that was in British Guiana in the 19th century.
There has been no expression in the press about the longevity of trade union leaders. Some of these people have chalked up three decades as head of their respective organisation. This had had a deleterious effect on the state of human rights in this country. Businesses and investment groups are flippant about trade union recognition because they have no respect for the questionable unions we have here.
You don’t hear or read, “oh these union leaders are destroying trade unionism in Guyana.” You don’t read or hear, “oh, the law must deal condignly with employers who do not pay NIS for their workers.” You don’t read or hear, “oh the press must provide readers of the newspapers their right to be heard. The Stabroek News said it will not publish letters that have appeared in other newspapers. You don’t read or hear, “oh that newspaper should be more accountable and fair.”
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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