Dear Editor,
I just got back from a conference on the Grenadian Revolution sponsored by the University of the West Indies Open Campus in Grenada. March 13 marked the anniversary of the Grenadian Revolution which resulted from the overthrow in 1979 of the authoritarian regime headed by Eric Gairy. In my paper at the conference in Grenada, I opined that one of the positives of revolution is that they open spaces for fundamental changes of the status quo. I argued that the Caribbean has stood still in developmental terms partly because our governments have avoided revolutionary changes when the opportunities presented themselves. Our Independence leaders, once in office, became reformists at best, never going beyond the confines of political and economic correctness.
I opened Saturday’s papers and saw the Prime Minister commenting on the granting of radio licences. The PM said that his preference is not for rescinding the obnoxious and illegal PPP give-away of broadcasting licences to the party’s friends and cohorts, but to give more licences. I am not sure whether the PM is speaking for the government as a whole or for the AFC faction of the government, but I completely disagree with that approach.
No, the governing party just cannot do that to those who voted for it in May 2015. No, it cannot do that to the historical moment it represents. The government was elected as an alternative to “government as usual.” Yes, I know parties fool people on the campaign trail—they promise things which they know they will and cannot deliver. But the coalition is not like that.
Yes, I know that parties say things on the campaign trail but when they get into government, the realities of government force a rethink. I cut them that slack. I am sympathetic to the feeling that the government cannot go full throttle on prosecuting all of the PPP’s excesses committed by that party when they held office. I am understanding of the view that in our ethnic environment the charge of witch-hunting has ethnic consequences and as such the government has to be careful about how it moves on the PPP.
But, at least in the name of integrity, some of the most egregious offences have to be confronted. And this matter of the broadcasting licences is one of them. Those licences should have been rescinded in the first days of the change of government. Some people got rich as a result of the monopoly they enjoyed in the industry. Those licences also represented a political advantage for one side of the political divide in the dissemination of propaganda. Others were denied equality before the law. And then there is the very obscenity that the act represented—the open misuse of power.
No, the PM is wrong. What is the message he is sending to supporters? Is he saying that the way to correct wrong in high places is to condone it in the name of political correctness? I am not advocating that the government must prosecute people without evidence. I am not advocating seizing people’s property. All I am asking for is a little consideration for the ordinary masses. They voted the coalition into government to clean up government not to sanitize the filth of the previous government.
Yours faithfully,
David Hinds
