Teachers’ strike: The PPP GOVT’s three-track strategy 

Feb 12, 2024 News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – Unfolding developments confirm that the PPP Government has decided on a three-track strategy as the spearhead of its response to the teachers’ strike.  There is the propagandizing strategy, followed by the sabotaging strategy, and last what is intended to give the impression of an empathetic mindset, with a conciliating strategy.

As the flush of events follow one another in tight formation, my conclusion is that all three strategies have been of limited utility.  They have failed to make any kind of enduring inroads against the embedded reality now in full flow on Guyana’s roadsides. To bolster this position, there is the ghostliness of classrooms, the eerie hush haunting empty spaces.

The propaganda strategy of the PPP Government and its calculating leadership is obvious.  Stain and taint the strikers and those behind them. Us versus them, which by extension takes on its regular sunburned complexion.  It is only a small percentage of teachers behind the strike barricades.  Put differently, schools and children are in good shape; the number of teachers on duty more than offsets those absent from classrooms. Government propagandists would like Guyanese to believe that the strike was a loser from the inception, one that never got any muscle to get going. I think that the numbers on the street have sufficiently strong persuasive power. The next PPP Government propaganda exhibition that backfired was a social media post indicating the handsome pay levels of teachers.  In their dogged efforts at deception, the highest paid were publicized, but nothing was said of the majority of rank-and-file teachers.  The top 15% of earners in the teaching system broadcast, but obscurity relative to entry level teachers, and middle to junior ranks, in the profession.  Instead of frank, honest conversations with striking teachers, there were these governmental falsehoods to hoodwink parents, citizens.  I believe that what is seen again is a dishonest government peppered with dishonest leadership.  Propagandize and pulverize.  Is this a democratic government, or a set of mobsters?

Second, the demolition and sapper teams received their orders, and went to work.  The strike is “political.”  Since this is boiling, roiling Guyana, there is only one translation: the strike is racial.  It is a not-so-subtle version of divide and diminish. Divide and devastate, even destroy, usually follows.  The colored man has learned well from the white man. The teachers’ union has not filed returns for 20 years.  They should have known and done better, I say.  But to what governmental purpose, may I ask for that foray into the underground?  Why the cowardly yellow mail from a red government? Stalinist red, as in obsessed with total control of all aspects of life, including this communication channel that dwindles.  Before the first striking teacher touched down on public ground to air their grievances, the action was deemed “illegal” by one honorable minister.  In the deployment of that one word “illegal”, the equivalent of a covert bomb squad was let loose.  In a flash, thousands of Guyanese teachers were condemned to the ranks of lawbreakers, even criminals.  This is a classic rendition of the PPP Government’s criminalising of the citizenry.

Any perversity would be fabricated, any concoction delivered, to criminalize objecting Guyanese.  I hold myself out as an example.  The PPP Government and its leaders must cultivate the wisdom to appreciate something: the more that is expended to bend a man, the more the probability for there to be blowback into the face.  Intimidation works on some.  It makes some stronger still. Next, the PPP has come up with the third rail in its three-track strategy.  It is designed to look conciliatory.  What should have been the first reactions, the first planks in the government’s response, became the last.  There are still concerns about the authenticity, totality, and durability of the gestures toward the conciliatory.  One leader found his voice and asked for patience, uttering something about the incremental.

Another remarkable one assured the striking teachers that they will not be victimised. The last time that thoughtful Guyanese trusted the word of either, the British, not the Americans, were the masters of Guyana. A quick aside is sought.  With rare exceptions going forward, local leaders across the board will not be addressed by name, for that humanizes them.  The objective is to strip them of humanity, show them in all their obscenity and putridity.  The very thought of mentioning their names, at least a few of them, inflicts staining and tainting, is found revolting.  Indeed, this is how much they have deteriorated, the deceivers and con artists into which they have metamorphosed, and in which they delight.

After dispatching their social media dirty tricks brigade, and painting teachers as lawbreakers (criminals), there is now the palm branch of pretended listening, of not preparing to engage in the recriminatory. Like I wrote recently, any Guyanese stupid enough to trust Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro is free to do so.  In identical fashion, any Guyanese who still trusts leaders in this country, including many in the PPP Government, also have that right.  Unless they are part of the criminal political cabal, then they trust to their unending detriment.  Teachers beware!  Teachers be on guard for Guyanese Greeks bringing explosive gifts.  Teachers persevere.  A livable wage is due.

 

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• criminalising, limited utility, Propagandize, the PPP Government’s, Unfolding developments, victimised

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