Dear Editor,

Sometimes, I wonder if political wisdom suddenly is the new kid on the block among a unique breed of columnists, editors, and paid letter-writers of this country, who seemingly and arrogantly posture themselves as owning and controlling all the solutions to developmental problems here. These would include columnists such as Freddie Kissoon and, indeed, some other assumed journalists, but on closer inspection, their solutions fail to withstand rigorous testing; their solutions are not grounded in the full breadth of data and information; their solutions are false.

The bottom line is Guyana unhappily bears the misfortune of accommodating a growing false journalism – crooked political writings passing for journalism among some columnists; writings aimed at inciting and exciting the usual suspects’ belligerent behaviour which typifies their local pastimes.

These pen-pushers peddle a false battle cry and an evil battle hymn today, painting Guyana as an elected dictatorship and a failed state, and indeed, making ad nauseam allegations of corruption, money laundering, and narcotics connections. But then mine eyes see the new emerging election season upon us, which provides me with instructive insights into the minds of the pen-pushers; insights that propel this unique breed of so-called journalists to metamorphose into the irresponsible new political opposition.

Most recently, we see the use of ‘fear’ as a method to drive the new opposition’s political agenda. This is not novel and it is almost simplistic by all standards.

Gary Remer in Political Theory (1999) noted that pen-pushers (not Remer’s term) may try to whip up fear in their disseminated pieces and apply that fear as a persuasive gadget. Aristotle in the Rhetoric explained that a speaker/writer can stir up fear among his/her readers/listeners to make ‘‘them feel that they really are in danger of something.’’ This use of ‘fear,’ a potent influential contrivance, could become a stimulus for action.

Cicero in his On the Ideal Orator argued that winning points of view depend on evidence, a like-minded audience, “and the rousing of their feelings to whatever impulse our case may require.” In Brutus, Cicero asserted that of all the resources of an orator by far the greatest is his ability to inflame the minds of his hearers and turn them in whatever direction the case demands. This pen-pushing gang’s treatise to the Guyanese people that there is some prospect of current and future evil could be a powerful persuasive tool, but will not be, as it is false. And fortunately, too, the Guyanese people are peace-loving, want to live in harmony; and are able to sift out the sacred from the profane.

And then we have the columnists and letter-writers among this idiosyncratic breed of pen-pushers romanticizing over their new bride, ‘elected dictatorship,’ a term that Lord Hailsham concocted, but quickly capitulated to the world in 1976, making the new bride (elected dictatorship) a divorcee. The use of ‘fear’ as a persuasive contrivance is integral to the dynamics of an elected dictatorship in its misguided usage in Guyana by some media operatives. For some, the dictatorship arrived some time ago, yet this dictatorship is enabling these same people to disseminate their minuets daily in the media; what a contradiction!

And some Guyanese people may feel proud to endure the affliction of ‘elected dictatorship’/‘illiberal democracy’ disease because Guyana shares company with Great Britain and the US in this regard. Well, there is nothing to feel proud about a false label, even if it does not suck and even if you happen to be in good company. Lord Hailsham referred in his 1976 concoction to Great Britain as an ‘elected dictatorship’; then we have Fareed Zakaria telling us that the US is an elected dictatorship/illiberal democracy because there is too much democracy in the US – almost paradoxical.

I cannot examine Zakaria’s perspective here; this I did in a series on Zakaria and elected dictatorship last year in the Sunday Chronicle.

Nonetheless, people may need to examine the reviews on Zakaria’s book published in 2003 The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, a good chunk of which expands on the paper he wrote in Foreign Affairs in 1997. In this regard, examine the remarks from Ferguson, Kagan, Przeworski, Plattner, among others. I already broached these in my series.
If these columnists in question are taking the lead from Zakaria and labelling Guyana an ‘elected dictatorship’ or an ‘illiberal democracy,’ then they must go all the way and advocate, too, for authoritarian rule for the developing world, including Guyana.

Don’t forget that Zakaria believes that too much democracy is responsible for the world’s evils; for Zakaria clearly believes that dictatorships have been more successful than democracies in promoting economic growth, and economic wealth is critical to producing democracies in the developing world. But Przeworski observed in the Harvard International Review, “that dictatorships promote development and that development breeds democracy are both false.” This unique breed of columnists blindly following Zakaria should take note! And the Guyanese people are wise enough to see through this implantation of false ‘fear’ within an ugly ‘elected dictatorship’ gift wrap.

Yours faithfully,
Prem Misir