From the time I launched Tradewinds in Trinidad in 1967, I have been to Guyana almost every year, sometimes twice a year. I was coming here with the band, sometimes merely on holiday, and I always kept in touch with the homeland, so I was familiar with what was going on. I had seen the socialism years and the economic decline. I had seen the turnaround started by Desmond Hoyte and continued by the PPP. I knew about the Harbour Bridge and the rise of the mini-bus culture. In later years, I knew of the neglected City Hall, garbage on Georgetown streets, and the rising seas. As a result, when I moved back here to live in 2009 there were no surprises in Guyana for me; I was aware of the bumps. Until 2011 that is when, to my utter shock, candidates in the general election let loose a barrage of invective that I never knew as part of the Guyanese political culture. Now, as another election looms, the invective has returned and in recent weeks it has reached, as a Trinidadian friend in Toronto put it, “the height of lowness.”
One has to hope that the public rejection of these personal political attacks will put a damper on things, and it is heartening to see some instances of persons within the leading parties calling out their own for such remarks, but the rise of this sordid attack practice leaves one to wonder what kind of people we have become where the persons who are aspiring to lead us are sometimes demonstrating what can only be described as contempt for the very people they represent. It is worth noting that a politician unable to deal in a civil manner with questions from a citizen, is clearly someone in the wrong line of work. What is particularly appalling is that it is a case of our own denigrating our own, and doing it with remarks that should have never seen the light of day as threats of violence and depravity are not only issued but subsequently repeated and even extended. Ironically, in one recent example, the person describing a female protestor as a “miscreant” is himself exhibiting the very behaviour he had ascribed to the lady.
From what low barrel has this excess sprung? I am aware of the very strident language that accompanies political campaigns in the developed world, where even a hint of scandal can derail a candidate permanently, but the gutter approaches surfacing here in political campaigns in recent years are revolting, and as someone who is often put in the position of defending Guyana in exchanges overseas, I have to confess I am ashamed. One can muster no defence for these behaviours. As one person said wistfully to me, “You feel soiled by this.” How did so many of our prominent people descend to this level? What counsel, or what private thought process, is involved in these responses to questions? Furthermore, many of our potential candidates are not only persisting in these assaults but are actually going further down the slope. We are now hearing of persons being threatened with physical assault or public embarrassment. In some instances, both the individual candidate and the private citizen are being described in distasteful terms, widely reported in the media, that I choose not to repeat here.
Have some of our political brethren lost all sense of shame? Is there nothing they will stop at in their attempts to discredit or attack opponents? Is there no line they will not cross? Watching these recent assaults, I cannot believe that it is Guyanese doing it to Guyanese; the venom in it is alarming. One is reminded of the case of the American Senator Joe McCarthy who was the leading architect of an anti-communist witch hunt in that country in the 1950s. Known for his vitriolic approaches (he often waved a “list of known communists in the US Government”) McCarthy headed a Senate Subcommittee on the matter, and during the hearings he accused Fred Fisher, a young lawyer in the firm of Joseph Welch, of being a communist sympathizer. In a riveting reply, which is now part of US history, Welch said to McCarthy: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School, and it is true that he came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us. Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think I am a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.” When McCarthy tried to renew his attack, Welch interrupted him: “Senator may we not drop this? Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
Welch did not raise his voice. His remarks were slow and deliberate, and to watch film of the incident today is to hear the anguish in his voice. He spoke in soft tones, but his final phrase, “Have you no sense of decency sir?” was like a gunshot. The hearings ran their course, but Joe McCarthy had been exposed as a bully and a scaremonger, and he was soon gone from the Senate. Today, as we see the rise of similar bullying and disregard of humanity by some of our politicians here, Joe Welch’s gentle admonition may be something to hold in reserve. The next time we encounter these attempts to malign in the political arena, we might well employ that simple question: “Have you left no sense of decency?”
