Dear Editor,
Having read the President’s response to the distributing of licences and frequencies issue, other than being privy to the Minister of Information’s complete and utter ignorance on the basic issues surrounding this travesty, what we are observing is that Mr. Ramotar is the dog being wagged by his own tail.
On issue after issue, whether it has to do with the procurement of textbooks or the Marriott or the liberalization of the airwaves, the pattern has emerged wherein some Presidential ‘Advisor’ – Gail Teixeira, Anil Nandlall, or Roger Luncheon – breaks the government’s silence with the public presentation of an absurd and ludicrous policy position, which the President then repeats almost verbatim, only to be placed in the hopefully embarrassing position of being completely wrong.
The textbooks have had to be procured legally, the Marriott has had to begin the process of hiring local workers and, if the forces of fair-mindedness and decency prevail, every single licence that has been distributed by Mr. Jagdeo’s ‘discretion’ will have to be rescinded, with the favoured applicants resubmitting along with everybody else under a radically amended broadcast legislation.
Now I, as I attempted six months ago, could go into some detailed analysis of precisely what is wrong and what the opposition and civil society need to do the correct this grave injustice, but the problem really exists at a more fundamental level – the disrespect, impunity, ignorance and arrogance with which the PPP conducts government in Guyana. But I am tired, and this it isn’t anything historically new, and I really can say nothing original about that. Instead, I’ll let Walter Rodney speak again, using the words of a 1979 speech about the Burnham regime, excerpted, but otherwise unedited.
“In one sense, we can dismiss this as nonsensical. In another sense, however, it is a reminder of to all of us how much contempt the government of this country has heaped upon the people of this country. You have to be absolutely contemptuous of the people whom you are addressing to tell them such foolishness and expect them to believe. It is a total insult to anyone’s intelligence to be given such an interpretation…
“It is ultimately, as I said, apart from comedy, an insult to the Guyanese people, and we have to say that we will put an end to those in power who have such a low estimation of our abilities. Not only are they insulting us, but in the real sense, it seems as if they have taken leave of all sanity. “Whoever accumulated power to themselves in such a way that they want to make every single decision in the state a personal decision, is being taken over by insanity, and it is not surprising, because no one man or handful of men even in their own interests should conduct the affairs of state as their personal business.
“So that is why this ruling class is being plagued now by symptoms of lunacy — losing touch with reality — they haven’t a clue what is going on. They’re living in a world of their own and they’re trying to reduce the rest of us to the same condition of losing touch with reality.
“Think about the story of the palace that they were about to build. In the midst of the most desperate economic crisis that has ever hit this nation… any sane government would not think about building a palace. But you see King Kong had decided he wanted to build a palace to his ego, and a monument to his own stupidity — so that he could sit inside and be a monument inside a monument.
“If you notice in the media… the Chronicle, one of the things they’re very hurt about is the so-called attacks on their leader. They have seriously promoted him as the ultimate in wisdom, all-knowing, all powerful, next to God… as though all intelligence in Guyana was concentrated in one man and no intelligence was outside. All virtue, all political acumen, all commitment was concentrated in one man.
“What we find in Guyana today is that the conditions which prevail make it impossible for professionals to conduct their professional life as they would like. You are not allowed to do the job you want to do.
“For too long our nature has been overcome by fear; a justified fear. It is true that there is a fear of losing jobs; the fear of not getting promotion; the fear that your children might be victimised and so on. But there must be a point at which people realize, that even that fear has to be overcome. It has to be overcome by a new resolution because in the long run it is not simply that you and I are fighting in individual battles. Far more important is the sense in which we can fight in a collective battle. They can’t fire everybody, they can’t victimise everybody; on the contrary, they have given us the vast majority whom they have treated with contempt, whom they have insulted everyday for 14 or 15 years. When we act together, we will make this little paltry gang of petty dictators go on their way. And we will bring them to task. Because it is obvious that in the end they depend upon the power of the people.”
Yours faithfully,
Ruel Johnson
