Attack on the media

Aug 09, 2023 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

---

Hard Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – So, Vice President Jagdeo has a problem with a SN editorial. It offends his sense of fairness, balance, and justice. Imagine that from such a renowned figure as this good brother of mine. Indeed, he has earned for himself the renown of someone who has a special version of truth, which alone must stand.

I processed his bitter complaint: ‘it is if we never did anything right’; amid the stridency, there was also a pitiful whine to that lament. Unsaid and unexhumed are the huge excesses, the many wrongs-institutional gutting, pretenses at truth, avoidance of truth, full-out secrets, cover-ups, evasions, disingenuousness, and the lightning blasts and rolling thunder of silence. Silence blinding, silence deafening about what is really going on in this territory. Like oil. S&P (‘please don’t holler pon dem’) just said that Guyana’s proven reserves at least double what is shared now. Mouth open, story jump out. But not out of Exxon, brother Jagdeo’s godfather and almighty father. I have been saying it, and ask it again: What’s really the full story with this patrimony, inclusive of reserves, expenses, and other items that cost us (scalp) big?

Then, what about the cost of living, Dr. Jagdeo? Should SN, and I (and other Guyanese) look the other way, when there are so many “high income” people in this land hustling to see if they can scratch out a meal and a snack, if they are resourceful, by the end of the day, and every day? Guyanese existing with constant economic pain is neither figment of imagination, population fragment, nor phantoms. With all the loans taken, and to be taken, and the hundreds of millions of Yankee dollars from the Oil Fund, why are these Guyanese hungry and needy? And faint from fear, frustration, too little food in their stomachs, less to give their children?

Since time immemorial, Dr. Jagdeo’s rage has been the standard response of potentates and pathetic political leaders. Brother J is a king in that company, but one with an abundance of sores, and pus to match. They sound bad, smell bad, and look bad. In essence: strangling messenger and mangling messages. Because I am wearing my missionary cap nowadays, I extend a hand to my flaying fellow citizen, for the more he flays away, the more he muddies the waters and himself. Instead of an expensive dual role-defensive and attack dog-propaganda machinery to mislead and deceive the nation further, govern correctly, lead cleanly, speak openly, stand honourably and 90% of the differences evaporate. The independent media then has nothing with suspicious substances, or of a toxic nature, or a corrupt stench, on which to report, or express a clashing position. Truth is the best defence; plus sanitizer; has genuine aroma. People are moved to support. Thinking Guyanese people, not rabid, dewy-eyed party fanatics.

I could boost, but brother Jagdeo’s output must withstand scrutiny. It can’t be just because he said so, it is so. It is not just about splashy numbers, but what was behind them, meaning how spent, and who and what were favoured, or ignored. The pain of the people is the pain of a real leader. It’s his truth, his mantle, his agitations in the right direction, and before the proper external faces.

As I observe Dr. Jagdeo’s baleful condemnation of the media, I go back just over 20 years to the city of Boston, and there are many eerie parallels. I spent two years there. Boston has a majority Catholic population; it is the only one among the huge American metropolitan cities. Many of the powerbrokers and those in the vast public service network were Catholics. Police, prosecutors, judges, social workers, the legislative and political class, and so forth.

When the Boston Globe began to report and report more on sexual abuse by priests and cover-ups, the church’s response was a single word slur: anti-Catholic. This was followed by the contentiousness of falsehoods, exaggerated, overwrought, sensationalized. The reality behind the scenes was of bishops, archbishops, and even cardinals doing their profane best to sweep crimes under the carpet. Sounds like the PPP Government with so many things, doesn’t it? Secrecy reigned, denials abounded, victims paid off, records sealed. Sounds like the PPP Government, doesn’t it? Known predatory priests were protected, transferred to other areas, and their crimes minimized. Sounds like the PPP Government, doesn’t it? In the instance of the PPP Government, it is not just for sexual violations, but financial ones, oily ones, and governance ones, too. Trust violated, citizens scarred, believing people hurt, just as I saw firsthand in Boston.

The Boston Globe persisted and prevailed in court. Slowly, the civil governance and legal apparatuses, largely Catholic, came around. Truth and justice had their day. It is a lesson for Guyanese media, and the Guyanese people, especially public servants. It is one for me. Be conscientious, stick to deep-seated convictions. There will always be a Vice President, a former president, a current and former minister to rant, deny, and denounce others standing for the light as dissenters, critics, naysayers, more. Brother Jagdeo did, and so has His Excellency Ali. I love these guys like brothers, but it is tough love.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

---

• GHK Lall, hard truths

---