“Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior.” – Aristotle, Greek philosopher
Revolution is eminently about change, mostly in social and political structure, and the world has been shaken by hundreds of such insurrections since Aristotle uttered his now oft quoted thoughts.
It’s a subject which has captured the attention of many political analysts including the famous American professor and author Chalmers Johnson who grouped all revolutions into six categories: (1) Jacqueries (peasant revolts), (2) millenarian, (3) anarchistic, (4) Jacobin-Communist, (5) coups d’etat and (6) militarized mass insurrections. All these insurgences possess the common thread of violence as they strive to cultivate change in the structure of their respective domains.
The Vietnam War is a classic case study in this area, as the American government did its utmost to fight the spread of communism in South-East Asia. The force and the spread of the tides of change fuelling a revolution are very difficult to restrict. The withdrawal of armed forces from South Vietnam in 1975, subsequently fulfilled the Americans’ worst fears of a domino effect as communist regimes rose to power in Cambodia and Laos.
Then, there are the silent revolutions that are masked by the hidden hand of time, creating significant changes without the complementing elements of riot and destruction. They snake a silky path through society, so subtly weaving changes into its value system that it takes some time before there is cognisance that an irreversible revolution has taken place.
This month marks the 42nd anniversary of one such revolution in Guyana; the advent of broadcast television. It is important to note that one other development preempted this revolution, and that is the videocassette recorder player, popularly known as the VCR. In the late 1970s, these appliances along with television sets began appearing in the homes of the middle and upper class in society. The exchange of videotapes amongst friends became a popular activity, and eventually led to the birth of the (now extinct) video library. Officially speaking, Guyana is listed as having public-announced television broadcasts from 1991, and is among the last countries in the world to arrive at this juncture. If one overlooks the Turks and Caicos, Guyana was the last country in the Caribbean and South America in this category.
In May 1980, Vieira Communications Television (VCT) began broadcasting television signals from its station in Versailles on the west bank of the Demerara River. In the main, these broadcasts consisted of the retransmission of US satellite TV signals which were scrambled and sold for a monthly fee, for which a ‘box’ or descrambler was required. These broadcasts crept into our society stealthily, initially serving the pleasures of the elite, who could afford the exorbitant cost of the descrambler. VCT’s Channel 28 began with limited operating times, mainly in the evening and included the popular soap operas such as “Dallas”, “Charlie’s Angels”, “Diff’rent Strokes”, “The Jeffersons” and “The Love Boat” to name a few. The legality of this operation has been the subject of much debate here, and over the years some writers in the letter column of this newspaper have gone as far as to describe this development as a ‘pirated’ affair.
The subsequent arrival of another broadcaster, WRHM on Channel Six, offering a free service, put paid to the monopoly enjoyed by VCT. Over time, more local television stations evolved, the cost of television sets became more affordable and they soon became a popular gift to families from relatives overseas. By the mid-1990s, the television had replaced radios and stereo sets, occupying pride of place in the living room of most Guyanese households, and the prime target of unsolicited guests.
It should be noted here that it is not the intention of this column to disparage local television broadcasters, since it was inevitable that the television revolution would wade ashore here at some stage. Nor is this column trying to take the place of local anthropologists or sociologists, who are best qualified to compile and interpret the long-term effects, both positive and negative, that the advent of broadcast television has had on our society.
However, casual observations of the older members of our society are worthy of note and can provide useful and important information to the younger generation whose curiosity has been piqued by the subject. This silent revolution has had a surreptitious impact. Many who were of an impressionable age when the ‘idiot box’ arrived in their sitting rooms may have been offered the choice between reading or squatting in front of the television and absorbing the transmitted matter. There are no prizes for guessing which option prevailed and the consequent results of long periods of time spent glued to the television set; the sharp decline in reading by our society, once rated as amongst the most literate in the world, is there for all to see.
The lamentation of the lack of this activity was the subject and plea of the New Year’s edition of this column (A resolution to read). While, as a society we are quick to blame the government for the falling standards in education, parents have to shoulder part of the blame for the lack of interest in reading, and the inherent consequences. One glaring statistic serves to compound this problem; the most failed subject at the University of Guyana is first year English. If our university graduates are not literate, where does that leave us?
Cultural spin-offs can include the disappearance of the many bookstores that once dotted the streets of our capital and the standalone cinemas, both of which can also attribute their vanishing to the scarcity of foreign exchange in the 1980s. The one key question for anthropologists to contemplate will be the influence that broadcast television has had on the mindset of our society with regard to fuelling migration. While it is true that the brain drain was flowing at an alarming rate before broadcast television, how much did it accelerate the process? At what age was the seed of migration planted in our minds by broadcast television? When were we convinced that living in North America would be better than developing our own country?
Today’s youth are unaware of a world devoid of televisions, Xboxes and the like and probably cannot contemplate life without them or without that ubiquitous appendage, the smartphone. Hence it is left to the older generation to consider the influence broadcast television has had on our society. Meanwhile, the technological revolution that far outstrips broadcast television is here to stay.