By Arif Bulkan, Alissa Trotz & Nigel Westmaas
As the editorial in yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek noted, just two months ago there appeared to be speculation that Freddie Kissoon, lecturer at the University of Guyana for 26 years and one of the most popular and controversial newspaper columnists in the country, was being targeted for the termination of his teaching contract. The shocking news last week that this has indeed come to pass suggests the cynical timing of the administration, for they understood the political implications of such a decision coming just before the November 28th elections. What is more disturbing is that the government representatives on the council – – and while there are examples from the colonial past, where else in the Caribbean today would such shameless political interference at the highest levels of decision-making in a higher education institution be tolerated? – seem to be behaving as if the PPP was handed a parliamentary majority. It reveals a stubborn refusal to recognize that the arrogance, lack of accountability and incompetence in many quarters – the same principles on display in this decision – had much to do with the election results.
Not surprisingly, the character assassination rumour mill has started cranking into gear, led by government officials. Kwame McCoy, press officer in the office of the President, issued a letter that appeared in the Guyana Chronicle last Friday. Although it has escaped comment so far, it is a highly significant intervention that, in the absence of any statements from the Office of the President to the contrary, suggests that this is indeed the position of the President and the Government of Guyana. This is no small matter, and the government should be pressed from all sides to explain this stance. In his letter, McCoy accused APNU and the AFC (one presumes by extension that all of the other letter writers, students and lecturers protesting at Turkeyen, are similarly pretentious and misinformed) of ignoring the rules of accountability, transparency and good governance in their opposition to the termination of Kissoon’s contract. One feels a bit like Alice in Wonderland visiting the Looking-Glass World, where words and things mean the opposite of what most people would normally expect. For in what universe save the hallowed chambers of the Office of the President, could this decision be seen to be accountable, transparent and reflective of good governance? Where is the due process, and how can it be that political appointees can stand in judgment of academic matters that must surely be out of their jurisdiction and are certainly beyond their competence? After 26 years of teaching, nineteen of which, as McCoy himself notes, were under the PPP, there has been a sudden discovery that Kissoon has not met the standards either as a teacher or researcher over the years. Such concern for the students has not extended to the fact that many are now left stranded without an instructor since not even the most basic plans were put in place to find a competent substitute ready to take over with a syllabus and lectures. It should be noted that at any respectable university, one does not hire teachers a day or two before a course is scheduled to start, unless of course one is interested in seriously compromising academic integrity and excellence.
If the council decision were a legitimate one then it could be expected that standards of performance are applied consistently and objectively to all staff at the University. However, not only is there no evidence of such equity, but the secrecy surrounding the decision masks a complete lack of fairness in how it was made. Basic tenets of administrative justice require the subject of any disciplinary action be informed of complaints and given an opportunity to respond, but none of this was apparently done. Instead the public was told that the minutes of the January gathering are confidential. The issue is so confidential that even the target of this punitive dismissal – himself a council member and therefore entitled to be informed of meetings – was neither apprised that it was taking place nor provided with evidence of the alleged reasons for the abrupt termination of his contract. But not so confidential as to prevent McCoy from penning a letter claiming that shoddy teaching and lack of research caused this decision. This must be seen for what it is, rumour mongering at its shameless best and improper political interference with what should be an independent institution of higher education. It also marks an astonishing indication that the contempt for the general populace that marked the previous administration has unfortunately not run its course.
There is clearly more than administrative probity and due process at stake here. Given Kissoon’s unrelenting attacks against the PPP administration, as well as the prominence of his column in a newspaper that doggedly pursues and exposes allegations of corruption in the government (most recently in its coverage of the contracts awarded to Fip Motilall), there can be no doubt that his termination was politically motivated. It punishes an enormously popular figure while at the same time serves as a continued warning to like-minded citizens of the enormous coercive powers of the State: criticize us, and we will destroy your very livelihood. Given the political and cussdown culture to which these politicians appear to be accustomed, Kissoon’s firing could conceivably have been developed in the ‘rumshop,’ prompted by a retaliatory and malicious logic of the ‘If (Fip) Motilall contract gah fuh go, den Freddie own gah fuh go too,’ variety.
Kissoon’s termination is a textbook case of unconstitutional action by the State, violating as it does both guarantees of free speech and the protection against discrimination on the ground of political opinion. It also violates the Ordinance upon which the University of Guyana was established in 1963, and which clearly specifies that “no religious, political or racial test shall be imposed on or be required of any person in order to entitle him to be a student or member of staff of the University. . . .”
In another looking glass moment, Vishnu Bisram wrote on January 26 that the “PPP government must be applauded for allowing unfettered freedom of expression during its tenure in office.” Only the most perverse historical revisionism could lead to such a conclusion, for as regards free expression, the PPP’s record has been unquestionably abysmal. A few examples will suffice here:
* For their balanced and therefore sometimes critical coverage of the government, the PPP withdrew all advertisements from both Stabroek and Kaieteur News;
* Despite court orders, only state-controlled media is allowed to operate in Linden;
* Under the PPP regime, no radio licences have been granted. The public has since learned that then President Jagdeo, in the waning days of his tenure, approved an undisclosed number of broadcast licences. It appears that neither Stabroek News nor Kaieteur News – with a lengthy track record of media experience between them – was among the awardees. In fact, we would urge both newspapers to release their bids to the general public since the government so far sees no need to be transparent about their decision-making process;
* A history of targeting anyone who says or does anything deemed critical, from the attempt by then President Bharrat Jagdeo to publicly humiliate Yesu Persaud, to the arrest and incarceration for two weeks of the young man who flipped his finger at a Presidential motorcade (even though the President was never taken to task for using profanities and abusive language with respect to just about anyone who crossed his path), to the lobbying of Caricom to cancel the contract of Carl Greenidge on the basis of remarks he made at the funeral of Winston Murray.
These acts and policies of the PPP are clearly motivated to stifle dissent, and they are the antithesis of democracy and the rule of law. Free speech – or freedom of expression as it is formally described in our constitution – is pre-eminent among fundamental rights: cherished in the liberal tradition and an indispensable feature of democracies. It is deeply connected to human dignity, for it enables individual reflection, and the access to ideas it facilitates ultimately subserves human autonomy.
Of all the myriad values of free speech, however, the most prominent is its relationship to democratic governance. Since sovereignty resides in the People, exercised through elected representatives, it is the freedom to disseminate information and communicate ideas that ensures this power is meaningful and is exercised intelligently. In other words, free expression provides the electorate with information, which means that choices can be made rationally. One can easily see how, in this way, the free flow of ideas and information facilitates good governance, for public scrutiny exposes incompetence and corruption and enables an informed electorate to choose wisely. Indeed, in truly democratic states, such accountability does not only operate retroactively (that is, at the polls), it also works prospectively by promoting honesty and competence. Thus political scientists, constitutional theorists and legal practitioners have all been unified in the value of freedom of expression. In the words of the Canadian Supreme Court: “Without this freedom to express ideas and to criticise the operation of institutions and the conduct of individual members of government agencies, democratic forms of government would wither and die…”
That the dismissal of Kissoon is the latest example of the continuities between the PPP administration and the worst excesses of the 28 years that preceded it, should not escape anyone. Who can forget how the PNC government used its control over people’s livelihoods to secure loyalty and silence, and to fire (or not hire at all) its critics, among them Walter Rodney, Kathleen and Harold Drayton, Adeola James, Mike McCormack? In an interview published in the month of his assassination, Walter Rodney offered a perspective that chillingly continues to be applicable to the Kissoon case and the general climate in Guyana today: “The dictator and his cronies make it their business to hire and fire. They interfere with major management decisions and they intervene in the most trivial affairs. The ruling clique can be vindictive with appointments at the supposedly independent University of Guyana as they can be vindictive with regard to businessmen applying for licences for imports controlled by the Government.”
Combine a vindictive political climate in which the stifling of expression is par for the course, with the abysmal salaries earned by those entrusted with the delivery of higher education, and we can expect continued lineups at the embassies and high commissions for exit visas. We can predict that Guyanese will continue to flee, to offer their skills elsewhere. We will continue to be known as the country that, despite having less than 800,000 people, holds the high distinction of having the highest rate in the world of migration of people with post-secondary skills (close to ninety percent).
This is why it is important that this decision to remove Freddie Kissoon from UG be categorically rejected. These are the actions of a deeply insecure and dictatorial elite. The political appointees on the UG Council and the narrow clique to whom they answer (for they clearly do not believe that they are answerable to the general population) must not be allowed to get away with this infringement of rights and freedoms. It must be kept on the front burner, by our parliamentary representatives who are not afraid to speak truth to power, by lecturers and students at the University of Guyana, by those of us in the diaspora in support of struggles at home, including and especially the various branches of the UG Alumni Association, by parents and all citizens concerned with the legacy we are leaving to future generations. We may not always agree with the positions taken by Freddie Kissoon in his columns, but we defend his freedom of expression and applaud his refusal, over the years, to be silenced. The price he is being made to pay – and the absence of due process is the clearest indication that it is not his performance but his politics that is the issue – is a threat to everyone who speaks out. To those among us who have doubts, or who are worried about taking a public stance, ask yourself, today Freddie. Tomorrow who?
In 1963, then Premier Cheddi Jagan established the University of Guyana. Although some in the opposition at the time derisively referred to it as ‘Jagan’s night school,’ the more general sentiment was that it was an institution that belonged to the people of Guyana. It is time now, on the eve of its 50th anniversary, to take it back.
