Our nation plunges to pathetic social depths so often that citizens may now be immune to the shock. Every time our leaders cuss out citizens from the platform, we sink lower as a society.
Hiding under that dictatorial constitutional cloak of his judicial immunity as Executive President, Donald Ramotar used the stage at Babu John this week to call Member of Parliament Moses Nagamootoo nasty and disgusting names.
Ironic it is that, at a ceremony honouring the memory of Dr Cheddi Jagan, who mentored both Ramotar and Nagamootoo in the People’s Progressive Party, the nation would hear such an abuse, such a nasty juvenile tirade.
On top of that wicked shame on us as a nation, the State newspaper proceeded to print in bold front-page headline, in quotation marks, the stunning Ramotar statement. It also published the offending content on its website for the world to see.
The newspaper screamed that ugly cuss out of Nagamootoo, to whom it illegally denies the right of access: “Ramotar rejects Nagamootoo as ‘intellectually corrupt jack-ass’ …defends Brassington against vicious, nasty opposition attacks”.
Who are we as a nation, as a 21st century people?
Nagamootoo once served as Minister of Information in the Government of this Party. He must, therefore, take some blame for the crisis that cripples the State media. Why did he not reform the State media after witnessing its demise over 28 years of State control and abuse under the previous Burnham and Hoyte administrations?
Ramotar and Nagamootoo served in the ruling Party for decades, growing up in the fight for free and fair elections. Today, look to what depths we have fallen: instead of us celebrating both these national leaders as heroes, we see them wrapped up in public verbal brawls and nasty cussing out.
Across this land, our public talk, our national conversations, become so abrasive, so uncouth, so full of strife, full of anger and hate, that our public spaces resemble barbaric behaviour, rather than a refined, civilized dialogue of reasonableness.
This week also saw the Private Sector Commission and other national associations come out in stinging attack against a private daily newspaper for verbal assaults against Gerry Gouveia, owner of Roraima Airways.
We see on social media sites and in videos, blogs and radio commentaries online, severe verbal assaults against Government leaders, Opposition Members of Parliaments, and even private citizens and business owners.
Unfounded claims and allegations, rumours and suspicions of all sorts fly freely about, and now circulate widely on the web.
Ministers face all manner of personal attacks, and the Nagamootoo cussing out at Babu John reflects a brutish behaviour that spans the society, not limited to any one group. Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, a decent mother of two young kids and a wife, is subjected to horrendous allegations floating around online on an anonymous website.
Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, suffering severe shortfalls and inefficiencies in his performance, faces a barrage of verbal abuse and personal attacks.
Khemraj Ramjattan and Nagamootoo, Nigel Hughes, David Granger, and even House Speaker Raphael Trotman, face verbal and written attacks on websites, in daily newspapers and on amateurish local TV shows.
We must curb this barbaric behaviour, and learn to deal with our problems through civilized talk, through authentic conversations, exercising respect, magnanimity, a sense of justice and fairness, and catering for the fact that a nation watches for the example of how to behave in public.
We saw this cussing out happen with the Linden crisis, the Rohee Parliamentary fiasco, the 2012 Budget cuts, and just about everything demanding the attention of our leaders.
Two national newspapers cuss each other out in attacking story after attacking story, alleging nefarious activities, corruption and conflicts of interests – constant in their hatred of each other.
Stinging verbal abuse and frightening allegations circulate about business owners, and how they acquire their wealth.
As much as our society suffers from corruption, embedded nepotism and gross financial malpractices, not to mention narcotic and alien smuggling, we cannot go about as a people shouting at each other in hate and anger.
We have got to learn to talk to each other.
Gerry Gouveia and Winston Brassington, for example, come under heavy written and verbal fire for their business practices.
Instead of publishing and broadcasting our suspicions, allegations and accusations for the world to see, which constitute slander, libel and maligning of character, of the worst sort, let us work to root out the causes of why we became such a degraded nation, why our institutions of justice, and public accountability, fail.
Despite rumours and controversies, Gouveia operates a company that builds and expands locally, that spans aviation, tourism and hospitality. This entrepreneur employs hundreds of staff, and sets an example for local entrepreneurship, and has shown that he is committed to playing a role in economic development.
If irregularities surround his business dealings in acquiring State property, or in any of his business activities; if Brassington is mishandling State funds through NICIL, as the accusations claim; if Rohee is incompetent; if Nagamootoo is “intellectually corrupt…”, if the Court decides Governing issues and not Parliament, as the Legal Affairs Minister seems to want, then we must find ways of dealing with these serious matters in an effective manner.
Shouting words of hate and anger, and maligning the character of public servants, private sector leaders and political officials accomplish nothing of worth or value, and produce no effective result.
When the President of this nation resorts to cussing out a Member of Parliament, when unethical daily newspapers and online commentators use the cover of journalism to carry out vicious personal vendettas and egocentric maligning of the characters of public figures, then we have failed as a nation.
To root out this evil, this national propensity for words of hatred and anger, our leaders must learn the art of public discourse. They must behave like cultivated, educated men and women, talking with reasonableness and sense. And our President must learn to exercise good manners, reason, etiquette and the class of statesmanship when he addresses us, the citizens of this nation.
