Dear Editor,
Foreigners have sophisticated ways of operating, which go over Guyanese heads. They observe Guyana, and hustle to give us a hand, so that we can be aware of where we are, and prepare us for the future now poised atop the national stairway. In their kindness the foreigners hold our hands, take us to school. It involves Guyana’s media. Two recent instances highlight this clever care of foreigners pitying us. It is that the media must understand and embrace its role in Guyana’s New Order. The first foreign tutoring class for local media pinpointed how Guyana has existed, still operates. It came from VICE News. The group did our work for us. It is called following leads, developing sources, gathering intelligence (without Spyware facilities); in two words investigative journalism. Expose who must be, including group favoured, whatever the biases and prejudices. VICE News did our heavy lifting for us, and though one grand figure was shown in a less than honourable light, media ranks were given a seminar on how it is done, how the trail must be pursued, and followed to whomever it leads.
The old Guyana that VICE News exposed is as new as today’s dawn, old as national political leadership. More importantly, I think the foreigner(s) didn’t come here randomly or innocently, but purposely. They knew what they knew, and they wanted Guyanese to know. Our eternal way of doing business, our disreputable manner of conducting ourselves, our endless betrayals at the highest levels of the people’s trusts. Such has to stop. It just cannot continue, so there was what I interpreted to be that warning shot. The foreigners were warning that they see through the murk of leadership mysteries. They must stop. Because we know more. Because we don’t want anything and anyone to jeopardize the New Guyana Order. Meaning, it’s Oil Order. This New Guyana Oil Age, which demands that the old Guyana goes away. It is this unsolvable puzzle: where oil is, corruption rules. How to combat? Who to confront? Where to begin? Hard work and more hard work for local media presences largely lacking the unbiasedness, the character, that energizes oil positives for the people, not political parties.
What I concluded from the VICE exercise was that national leaders who persist with their troubled ways will be addressed smartly. Should any Guyanese get the idea that that foreign media agency came here unaided or unloaded with details, I urge serious rethinking. It is how the real-world works, the subtle ways in which rough messages are smoothly transmitted outside diplomatic corps. They may not be sweet, but they are smooth. It is precisely what I saw in this little candle that the foreigners put before Guyanese recently. Again, it involved the media, and this time, under the lovely standard of World Press Freedom Day. It is the best cover, provides room to maneuver insightfully. First, to convey a call; second, to wave warnings; last, and to light fires under the locals long settled in their tribal and political partisanships. Embedded in those foreign guiding hands and voices are the ideals of the noble Fourth Estate, the ethics of journalism. It is the way of what used to be, but not anymore. It took two forms primarily, with secondary matters sidelined.
The first was this creature out of the abyss with the frightening ID card of spyware. Like VICE News exposé of local capers, this development was also not accidental. The mere mention of it spoke to invisible helping hands (foreign ones) planting that in the local media fields for expression. To emphasize my position, it was not a case of loose lips sinking ships. NO! It is of foreigners alerting Guyanese of what is going on, while advising leaders to desist. Guyana’s President decided it was best to take an aggressive-defensive posture. Never! Not here! Nowhere near me! I thank the President for his stentorian assertions, which makes me look at him almost worshipfully. Almost, not quite, since I remain an infidel searching for real leadership truths. Guyanese had better be, when there are such insecure, easily agitated, highly vindictive comrades in the fold. Spyware is the new phantom asset, the electronic Black Clothes operating from the air to check on what is happening on the ground, especially who is involved. Then the foreigners got to gushing about Guyana’s oil revenues and the pivotal place of local media. It involves heavy lifting and hard work. What I believe most media minstrels would term ‘dutty wuk.’ But there it was on press freedom day from voices strangely accented. This means that the media must stop fawning over and regurgitating what political con artists concoct for their consumption first, and for them to pass to the nation.
What the foreigners said was: 1) get vision; 2) get tools; 3) get backbone; and 4) get to truth. It is stop being the National Enquirer and Playboy for political bunnies. Become some limited edition of the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, and the like. Do the digging, know the territory (suspect), and arm self about finances (swaps, futures, spot, depletion, volatility, and traders), oil history and practices (Rockefeller, Raymond, Gaddafi, Gomez, Abdullah and now Ali). Stop the bull. Stop fiddling around chasing ambulances. Get to the meat and potatoes of oil. Spill the stories. It was cut to the chase, colleagues in the media. This has nothing to do with Guyana’s interests. It is simply what keeps locals honest and an untroubled Exxon pursuing its business in a stable and sound environment.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall