Dear Editor,
Mr Anil Nandlall’s letter titled `Brexit process in UK puts Guyana gov’t to shame’ in SN of Monday last is a study in selective representation of information and actual misrepresentation. Since he is a professional politician, this is to be expected. It is called the practice of propaganda. The trouble is that it is becoming plain that these letters bombarding the reading public in a relay and tag team system are having a huge impact upon an intellectually unsophisticated population. Apparently, many people believe the misrepresentations as if deity had spoken.
As of Wednesday, PM Boris Johnson’s attempt to prorogue parliament has been ruled illegal in Scotland. Notice that it is the mere prorogation of parliament for 5 weeks at a time when Britain is facing an existential crisis that has generated the backlash. Let’s get it clear. The Guyana government in 2014 prorogued parliament for six months. The uproar in the UK is because the opposition will have none of it. They know that it is an attempt to thwart the scrutiny of parliament. Our Guyanese fighter Gina Miller of whom Nandlall is so justly proud, went to court to challenge the attempt to bypass Parliament when Theresa May’s government planned to treat the matter as not parliament’s business. Miller went to court again this time to fight the closure of parliament. So the comparison with Guyana more appropriately belongs to Guyana in 2014 not 2019. But you would not realise this from Nandlall’s letter.
He says that “Comparatively, it makes us in Guyana look like a society now emerging from Thomas Hobbes’ “State of Nature.” The British think the same thing of what is happening in their society right now! The very selfsame thing! For example, Conservative MP Desmond Swayne in his interview with SkyNews said it would be a “Constitutional Outrage” if a No-Confidence Motion was planned to be tabled next and Parliament was prorogued. But that is exactly what happened in GY in 2014! But Mr. Nandlall and his coterie of propagandists would not tell you that even if they knew.
Another British commentator said a few days ago that if a law were to be passed to prevent a no- deal exit from the EU and PM Johnson were to try to ignore it that would make Britain a failed state. So at least we can say that the current impasse puts President Granger in good (or bad) company – not at the other pole!
Editor, there are so many things that are Brexit- related that are poor examples for Guyana that only a very selective analysis could produce a picture that Mr. Nandlall makes.
But the most egregious example is his comparison of PM May’s gracious exit compared to Granger’s failure to budge. He apparently did not notice the little detail that May did not take her whole government down with her!
He says “Ministers are resigning from Cabinet and Government MPs are crossing the floor daily…I have not heard a single allegation of “betrayal” or “treachery” or “bribery” that were barbarically made in Guyana, when Charrandass Persaud…” Mr. Nandlall may be too young to remember the comments his party made when Ranji Chandisingh and Vincent Teekah defected to the PNC but he certainly would remember the comments when Ramjattan and Nagamootoo did. And who could forget the popular TV commentator’s vilification of US Congressman John Mc Cain with the words “on the anniversary of another famous betrayal”. He was referring to Judas and that was the US, not Guyana.
Editor, only Wednesday (11th Septem-ber), the Scottish Court ruled in the opposite way from the English court on the said prorogation of parliament by the Johnson Government. So, what I see there is the same use of law by political parties in their games. Here is MP Ian Murray’s comment “It is disappointing that we have to go to the courts to protect British democracy, but Boris Johnson’s attempt to silence the people’s representatives cannot go unchallenged.”
In fact, the reason why the British court refused to grant the order to stop Johnson but the Scottish court did is instructive. On the claim of deception, the English court is reported to have said that that is political behaviour and he was in no position to change that. On the other hand, the Scottish court is reported to have ruled differently because a case for basing the reason for prorogation on a falsehood was successfully established. The supreme court will now rule.
The point is that the court in the UK knows how to delineate politics from law. In Guyana, we have had a constant and plaintive wailing against the CCJ for doing the same. But you won’t see any attention to that from Mr. Nandlall.
Editor, those of us who have made a point not to be influenced by propaganda (one wit has said it makes you a proper goose) have serious difficulty with what has become the rule of propaganda and not rule of law.
For example, some of us do not understand why “… and shall resign after the president is elected” means “shall resign before elections are held”. We do not understand why the CCJ judgement handed down saying that those words do not need interpretation are not as much a snide rebuke to those who interpret it to mean its opposite as those who pretend that they do not know what is a majority of 65.
We do not know why Guyana is represented being in a state of greater illegality now than when parliament was prorogued in 2014. Article 61 says “An election… shall be held …within 3 months after every dissolution of Parliament.” It said the same thing in 2014. Notice that this period of 3 months features frequently in association with the time for elections. And please don’t tell me that the use of the word “prorogue” made any difference. The business of the country was put on hold and ministers of government were unavailable to be questioned in parliament in the glare of the public about the country’s business.
Some of us understand that parties that have used the constitution as a weapon when in power object to others using the same constitution in the same way. But what we also see is that those of a more simple-minded bent cannot discern the games being played by politicians at the expense of the country and national harmony. This includes much of what is supposed to be the cream of Guyana society including the press. This is producing several tentacles of a dystopia that is silently but surely eroding national cohesion.
First, we have a situation where the politicians are being paid to attend parliament but the debates which should be held in the people’s parliament are being won in the press. As long as one party can sway more minds by letters in the newspapers because people refuse to think for themselves there is no incentive to have face-to-face debates in parliament. Why attend parliament to debate while you can be paid to use the same time to push propaganda successfully? Whoever agreed to put together a constitution that allows such an outrage? But we should not be surprised. First they make the president’s remuneration a kind of jackpot. So everyone wants to win it. And they did it while our unsophisticated population cheered them on.
It does not take genius for anyone to ask why other countries do not have such a problem with their elections apparatus to recognize the second tentacle. It is the deadly combination that the Guyana constitution imposes on the nation – a highly politicised GECOM where the politicians have no constituency to answer to and can glibly speak of representation of “the people” when those “people” have no direct power to recall them since they owe their positions to a list someone made up in their party.
It does not take genius to realise the third tentacle – that of GECOM being under the direct influence of squabbling politicians with no Civic Society arbiter. Both parties are to blame. Each has been expecting and continues to expect to benefit from whatever weaknesses in the system they would have known about (or even engineered) in the past. (Commis-sioner Vincent Alexander was sharp enough to notice when the count was going wrong with the 2011 results. You want to bet that the other party did not know as well but said nothing? If you believe that, I will do a Dr Crime and offer to sell you Parliament Buildings. Pity he didn’t succeed; it seems like it is useless now).
To some of us, the political system has been held hostage by two outdated parties for too long. They are the result of the best efforts of the political class of the 1950’s which we have no choice but to respect. However, at some point, we have to realise that our grandparents of all shades and length of hair (“both bondsmen and free”) sacrificed and sent us to get an education that they never had the chance to acquire so we could deliver better circumstances than they had. This system that their children produced stinks and does them a huge disservice.
Some of us do not understand why the opposition is breaching the constitution. How so? Article 94 provides as follows: “The president may be removed from office if he or she commits any violation of this constitution or any gross misconduct. The procedure for removing him or her is stated at article 180. If, as the Opposition is claiming, Guyana is in a state of illegality, and will be so especially after 18th September, the Opposition has a duty to activate article 94.
Please don’t tell me that it cannot do it because it cannot meet any of the requirements for that motion to pass and the president to be removed. You would be thereby admitting that there is no violation that can pass the litmus test as set forth in the very constitution.
Finally, I am recommending to our Amerindian brothers and sisters that they get their act together and stand solidly behind Mr. Shuman. If two can play the ethnic game, so can three! This country ran best when there was a party that represented three ethnic blocs.
Each of these two parties will continue to fight over the right to do backroom oil deals. The future of Guyana might actually depend on you. Your communities at the Western frontier are under threat like never before. Not since the Rupununi uprising has the relationship between the destiny of our country and the Amerindian community become more important. You have since had an opportunity to learn from that. Your future is bound up with ours in the rest of Guyana.
Don’t worry about whether Shuman has experience or not. He probably has more experience than Cheddi and Forbes had when they started out in politics. Do not fall for the propaganda you will hear! Don’t worry about the trinkets they are giving you and the promises they are making. Take them, put your differences behind you, hold your own bottomhouse and rum shop meetings, smile with them, and at the right time vote solidly for Mr. Shuman. Charrandass showed the way! Learn from him. The future of this country depends on your coming together as a united force. I left out the capitals deliberately.
Yours faithfully,
F. Collins
