By GHK Lall- Press freedom in Guyana is once again in the headlines, the consciousness of Guyanese. It’s time to raise the cudgels several decibels. Now that the World Press Freedom Index highlights Guyana’s continued slide into disrepute, the call is for another look, more inquiries. I reverse, then come forward.
During his first turn at the wheel, it was Pres Ali who immersed himself in political sanctimonies, while railing against criticism. Naysayers, media protestors, constitutionally-inspired conscientious objectors and others he deemed undesirable soothsayers all came in for heavy condemnation. In Ali’s telling, he was all for criticism, but only on the condition that it falls within the perimeters of what he termed ‘constructive criticism.’
I asked then, ask again: by what divine right of presidents did Excellency Ali seize for himself the moral authority to impinge on what acceptable criticism is, is not, and should be? To spotlight the president some more, expose his frailty (his fallacy) longer, by what fig leaf of his imagination, by what token of intellectual gravitas, did he conjure what’s ‘constructive criticism?’ And, what made he, Irfaan Ali (PhD), the sole authority thereto?
Thereafter, the die was cast, hatchets brandished, messages communicated. It was open season on citizens exercising freedom of thought, freedom of belief (political not religious), freedom of expression, and freedom to express such in every channel in this society, whether private enterprise, or publicly backed.
When State media doors were slammed harder, sealed tighter, in the face of those who fell into one of Ali’s colorful denunciations, hunting season flourished. Victims bagged, hogtied from head-to-toe. Though unexpected, it didn’t surprise that a Stabroek News would be visited by the PPP Govt’s Grim Reaper.
First, there were vice presidential railing and ranting about coverage and commentary, though today he seeks cover under the cloud of climate change. Then came the kiss of death, a Jagdeo special that manifested his totalitarian tendencies, and communistic love for total control: no chopping off of ads. But eliminating, through clever non-dispersal of tens of millions in ad payments. Was that a scheme that reeks of the Machiavellian, the politically sinister, or what?
Meanwhile, there were those individuals who spoke out being singled out for the PPP Govt’s Saturday Nite Special: a two-by-four to the skull. One captain calling for the constructive; another far cleverer biding his time, while working feverishly, to deliver his coup de grace: no submission and cooperation, no consideration and no compassion. Said more colloquially: no money. no love. I am still trying to figure out the legal equation, the constitutional formula, that Minister of Law, Order, and PPP Justice, Mr. Anil Nandlall, employs as the basis for this overreach, the assassins’ excesses.
Or why what is demanded for the PPP is denied to others. How could it be that what the PPP claims as piety for itself is damned as heresy in others. Another for Ali and Nandlall: Stabroek stopped. Now stop social media. Guyanese truckers crying against impoverishing Chinese invasions.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Ali-Jagdeo-Nandlall government insists that it cherishes press freedom, is a welcoming, comforting, lighthouse to press wanderers, media shipwrecked, and freedom’s outcasts. It must be recalled that the Third Reich always insisted that the gods were on its side. Some gods those must have been! I sympathize with Excellency Ali, doctor of overstatement, and heavily overburdened worker. But to give Lords of the Guyana Realm, Jagdeo and Nandlall, a pass, is asking too much.
If they’re ignorant, I help: the deeper the oppression, the stronger the conviction. Conclusion: methinks that those who object to light and truth must be messengers of darkness, hypocrisies foremost heroes. Thus, press freedom, (freedom itself), falters, fades, in PPP Guyana. if they don’t know, those who labored to narrow the boundaries of argument and dissent have invariably self-destructed. Press freedoms, other freedoms, are matters of principle; neither leadership luxuries nor benevolence.
