Freedom to speak, freedom to question, freedom to differ

Jun 22, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The world has been told often enough that Guyana is a democracy. One of the hallowed lynchpins of a democracy is speaking one’s mind without fear. Without fear of intimidation, anxieties about retaliation, concerns about personal security. When a population fears its own government, or harbours misgivings about its regard for democratic norms, then the first alarm bells warn that freedom of speech is under attack. In Guyana, it is not just what is said that is subjected to savaging by the State in the worst ways conceivable. But also, the individuals and entities that are the authors of a news article, a sectoral analysis and report, or an opinion on some sensitive issue of the day.

When contributors and would be contributors in the public arena have second thoughts, or hesitate, about participating in the issues of their society and time, for fear of their government, then the early trickles of tyranny come into their own. The field of public presences narrow considerably, as citizens secure themselves through the sanctuary of silence. The healthy engagements, the honest debates, that are vital for a progressive polity deplete rapidly, in that discretion is seen as the better part of valor, and held as virtuous. The shabby from shabbier people, usually from the State sector, dominate national discourse, with only a handful of dissenting stragglers on the periphery being heard. Or allowed to squeeze into whatever tight space is left. There is no nucleus of contending opinion or postures, only what is a procession of people retreating with self-preservation ranking high on the scale of their nervous considerations.

No government that holds itself out as democratic can find any dignity in the existence of such mindsets, such conditions. No leader with an iota of self-respect could be proud of such an environment. No leader with any genuine decency deep inside, with real democratic instincts within, would want to own a reputation presiding over such a state of affairs. When members of the Fourth Estate, the professionals in the press, are victimized by a constant stream of disrespect, outright hostility, and vilification distinctive in its sordidness, then there is the danger of a new speech culture gaining traction, becoming the norm. Democracy is about open speech and the responsibilities of all parties in the quest for the facts, the sum of truths, and all the other related elements that are due to the public. Freedom of speech does not entail, can never incorporate, the thinking and positions of any one official leader only. No one has such an exclusive right, should have, or seize for himself, such an unchallengeable standing. Brow-beating and pigeonholing and stamping out in the most conspicuously aggressive manner possible is not democracy. To repeat from a few lines back, it is the first display of the ugly face of tyranny.

When professional journalists cannot go about their work with the greatest freedom, the most unfettered exercise of their minds, then a political cancer has started its spread. When public commentators are treated to the vile, and the repulsive is favored, then more than a Rubicon is crossed. The signals are unambiguous: swamp the contrarians, overwhelm the disagreeable, and drive them into silence, or surrender. At a time, when the eyes of the world are on Guyana, this is more than distasteful, it is degrading and self-destructive, and weakens a country to the point that is prone to devastating exploitations. In an era when numerous feet rush to Guyana for a piece of its rich pie, only the lowest of conclusions are reached about what kind of country Guyana is, how vulnerable it is for pillage, thanks to those who control the levers of power.

It is said that a true measurement of a government is how it deals with, manages, and responds to its critics. Those would be the ‘naysayers’ and self-appointed ‘experts’, as they have been dismissed in Guyana, and despised in the process. When a government and its leadership are so insecure as to limit the number of questions, or to concoct ways to evade them, that is not democracy’s finest expression or hour. Rather, it is public testament to leadership delusions and, worse still, leadership decay.

Democracy, Editorial, Freedom, Guyana, question

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