Editorial

As creeping democratization takes hold in the Middle East, some curious Westerners  have combed through the region’s literature for clues to the turbulence.

Two eminent Guyanese economists, Dr Havelock Brewster and Prof Clive Thomas, are perhaps most famous in integrationist circles for their seminal 1967 work, The Dynamics of West Indian Economic Integration, the centrepiece of a series on regional economic integration put out by the University of the West Indies.

Just over a week ago, totally in keeping with the intemperate behaviour that has come to characterise this current administration, Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy chose a public forum to angrily inform the representatives of international organizations based here that they had used wrong data which was not tabulated locally, and which “disrespected” the country and undermined the efforts of local health workers.

In recent weeks discussion has again arisen on the question, ‘Shall we have a CCJ or not?’

Parent protests over infrastructural deficiencies, health hazards and physically dangerous conditions in state schools – the latest of which occurred at the Philadelphia Primary School just last week – have become a common occurrence.

While to err is human, Minister Webster’s parliamentary howler in pricing the netbooks for the government’s one laptop per family (OLPF) programme betrays something else more fundamental.

Proceedings in our House of Assembly are usually fairly turgid, except when they are enlivened by the occasional witticism, such as when Minister Kellawan Lall rose to his feet to speak on Monday, and Ms Debbie Backer called out to her fellow parliamentarians, “Duck!”

About eight months ago, shortly before the general elections in the UK, The Independent, a daily newspaper in England relaunched with a new design and a banner at the top its front page which proclaims: “Free from party political bias / Free from Proprietorial Influence.”

Even as more and more people eschew the radio for the visual immediacy of television and the interactive, multimedia experience of the Internet, Tuesday, February 1, 2011 was quite an interesting day to be listening to the BBC World Service.

Last Saturday, in our weekly entertainment and culture eight-page supplement The Scene, we carried a report based on an interview with the reigning calypso monarch Mr Geoffrey Phillips – the Mighty Rebel – in which he said that he was foregoing defending his title this year and would not compete again because of what he described as “shabby treatment” meted out to him by the state controlled television station – National Communications Network (NCN).

A series of actions and events since its election to office in May of last year, seems to be giving the People’s Partnership government an aura of instability, or at least inconsistency, in its behaviour.

We may never know the truth behind the acid attack on Mr Pretipaul Jaigobin, the former Assistant Treasurer of the Guyana Cricket Board  in May last year.

Wherever public servants function, an indispensable part of the work they do relates to their interface with the public on issues of importance and interest.

Every autocrat in the Arab world must be shaking in his sandals.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was in a combative mood this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, interrupting the usual backslapping with contrarian advice that was long overdue.

Significant sectors of Venezuelan society, including the combined opposition, civil society, academia, non-state media and the Episcopalian Church, have reacted strongly to the package of laws, including the Enabling Law granting the President special powers to rule by decree for 18 months, passed last December by what was effectively a lame-duck National Assembly.

On Monday last, the first day of the 2011 budget debates, Alliance For Change Chairman, Mr Khemraj Ramjattan MP, provoked a strident outburst in Parliament when he referred to a lack of transparency and accountability by the government and drew a parallel between that and Minister of Housing Mr Irfaan Ali being hauled before the House Privileges Committee last year over a $4 billion supplementary allocation for work in the housing sector that was sought in 2010, after it would have been already spent the previous year.

There must be very few people, diplomats, politicians or journalists, who were not taken by surprise at ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier’s sudden appearance in Haiti,  and there can only be speculation as to whether the Government of France, in which Duvalier had been residing, itself knew.

We appear once again in one of those familiar and deeply discomfitting periods in which armed bandits demonstrate their ability to strike anywhere and at will.

When the case against two policemen accused in the torturing of a 15-year-old collapsed ignominiously in court last week it didn’t erase the stain from the country of this heinous act.