Dear Editor,
Former Minister Dr H Jeffrey, joining the queue of commentators on the Colwyn Harding episode, (SN, January 22) has located his discourse in a double-barrelled context, outwit the more prevalent pronouncements generally characterized by, or infected with, the affinities of ethnic dissonance. As he puts it, the remedies, if granted, “Outside of the proper political context, their effect will be minimal if not useless.” Amplifying his thesis he emphasises “Neither the PPP/C nor the police hierarchy directly encouraged the police to brutalise Mr Harding …” and without a hint of sequential construct, he ventures to suggest that “These kinds of outcomes are a dysfunction of the politics of domination.” More pertinent to his real intended postulate are his following two conclusions, viz, “Once set in motion, the politics of domination follows a logic in which brutalities, intimidation, propaganda and confusion are common place… And those who seek to make and implement policy to safeguard our collective and individual safety must, at the very least, take cognisance of this broader political context and agenda”! Not bad for a savant of his political and philosophical genealogy and cabinet experience.
Cast from a different professional mould, this writer prefers to focus on the interplay of the major participants and, more importantly, the facts, in the confrontational engagement under scrutiny. Without the latter, subjective analyses could lead to protean conclusions not amenable to apodeictic proof; failing to observe this minimum imperative would divest the process of its objectivity and transparency and, ultimately, may lead to the recrudescence of the past, thereby generating the very “propaganda and confusion” which Dr Jeffrey determines flow from “the politics of domination.” Prudence dictates that the journey to justice, though somewhat perambulatory, protects the innocent in much the same way as it penalises the guilty.
Career politicians preach the sermon of prevention and cure in much the same way that businessmen seek to promote their merchandise as customer friendly in the hope and expectation that they would have exclusive access to the marketplace.
However, that access if solely dependent on their salesmen’s integrity, loyalty and commitment, or lack thereof, may present challenges to their success. Vigilance and supervision are necessary components of any carefully composed plan and we, in Guyana, by and large, may have forfeited that claim to the consummate managerial skills requisite for complex administration. Perhaps, some of us have been promoted to positions beyond our levels of competence. Herein lies the problem but we need not despair and can take comfort from the aphorism “a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; not so an optimist who sees the opportunity in any difficulty.”
Yours faithfully,
Justice Charles R Ramson, SC
Former Attorney General
and Minister of Legal Affairs