People with hidden agenda who are ignorant

Jul 21, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – There are two sectors in the society that unleash relentless criticism of the government of the day. One is the opposition that is hoping to form the government in the near future. They constantly confront and seek to expose because that is their raison d’être.

You can’t expect them to praise the ruling party in a continuous mode. If they do that then they will erase themselves electorally. Then there is that vicious compartment of society – those who have either a class or race agenda in seeking to weaken the ruling group.

They are not into electoral politics but they are driven by the instinct to reject those in power who they feel are not suitable for power. There may be also an ethnic agenda at work. People of a certain religion, culture and/or ethnicity reject the government and want their own kind to govern.

This theory in brief has been a constant theme in my columns. I have consistently argued since the election tsunami of 2020, certain sections of society have composed a class and ethnic agenda to oppose the Ali presidency. There are times when acceptable lines are crossed and personal focus gets expanded. One example was the unsavoury criticism from some quarters about the cost of the ticket for a fund-raising event of the First Lady. Please see my column of Wednesday, May 18, 2022 titled, “Peeping Tom on the Stabroek News.”

The same columnist, last Sunday, has rejected from the same quarters the ridiculing remarks on the Muslim clothes the president wore when the Saudi delegation visited Guyana last week. Not only was this ignorance because many western leaders have donned the traditional wear of the countries they are visiting but it turned the symbolism of the clothes in the opposite direction. Instead of seeing it as a mark of cultural respect for the visiting dignitaries, it denigrated the president for showing such respect.

There is another dimension to this attack on the president. Why pick on an inconsequential thing like the president’s clothes?  This is a manifestation of a petty mind. Then came another attack. The government is berated for establishing trade relations with Saudi Arabia because that Arab nation is not democratic.

I know of no Third World scholar and politician that would argue that small states that face impossible barriers to trade from the rich countries should take the lead in chastising wealthy nations for not having a democratic system and thus avoid trading with them. It is pathetic ignorance of the worst kind.

The raison d’être of small states in the international system is survival. They cannot take a lead role in shaping global affairs because that is not their role and they do not have and will not have the capacity in hundreds of years to come to do so. The small states in the international system need to have trade relations with nations that can sustain their survivability. It was for this reason, the Non-Aligned Movement was born. Given the way geopolitical competition among great powers is intensifying, the idea of non-alignment may be in for resuscitation.

Poor nations in international political economy have no business inserting themselves into the power rivalry of gigantic countries. Their role is to seek trade and aid without sycophantic embrace. They must pursue economic assistance from states that offer them it and stay clear of any form of attachment.

There are different types of nations in the world – superpower (the US, China); great power (UK, France, Russia India, Germany, Japan, Brazil, among others); middle power (Mexico, Turkey, Nigeria, South Korea, the Southern Cone of South America, South Africa, etc; small power (Israel, Singapore, Kenya, Mauritius, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, etc; and finally, poor states that emerged from colonialism and need developmental assistance.

In all of those categories, there are diplomatic and trade relations with countries that do not have sound democratic credentials. Saudi Arabia is a Middle East powerhouse. A majority of developed countries that are democratic have trade and diplomatic relations with Middle East autocracies.

It is unadulterated ignorance to posit that a poor economy that has decades more to catch up with even small nations with sound economy should take the moral high ground in international relations and shun Saudi Arabia. It is abysmal ignorance to even attempt to offer it as a suggestion. That is not the way the international system operates.

The criticism of the Guyana Government for trying to establish trade links with Saudi Arabia was designed to get at President Ali. It is symptomatic of the class and ethnic structure that emerged after 2020. The mainstream opposition did not criticise the president clothes or the Saudi trade link. They are not driven by class and ethnic hate.

(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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