I cannot believe that the powers that be intend to persist in their policy of drastically reducing a share of publicly owned advertisements to Stabroek News – as the Editor-in-Chief states and the statistics show is happening. This would be an attack on freedom of expression and an attempt to suppress the independent press and therefore unacceptable in a democracy.
If this were indeed happening it would be the unhappiest of events. We all know why. It is because no question needs so urgently and repeatedly to be asked of anyone with power over others than that suggested by Oliver Cromwell in a letter he addressed to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on the 3rd August, 1650. “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ,” Cromwell urged the assembled Churchmen, “think it possible you may be mistaken.” Great words that Cromwell later, in the fullness of his own power, too often failed to remember.
“Think it possible you may be mistaken.” It is a point that continually has to be made to anyone who gets to thinking that he and he alone possesses the keys to the kingdom of truth. Throughout history cruelty, evil, and inhuman absurdities of all kinds have followed in the wake of dogma put into practice. Long ago the most dangerous kind of dogma was religious, because religious leaders wielded dominant power over people. Now, in an era when politicians have the power, it is political dogma which is most dangerous.