Good things and bad things
Freddie Kissoon column
Kaieteur News
February 25, 2007
To attempt to get people to understand why criticism is important in a society should be one of the easiest tasks in life. How much brain power does it take to learn the value of criticism? If those who make policies do not face a fault-finding review from the citizenry, then changes become impossible.
I believe a majority of people in the world accept that leaders must be told when they are wrong not just for the sake of picking on them but for the preservation of life itself.
I believe almost 99 percent of the citizens of this world understand the golden role a free, independent press plays in any country in which it operates.
Against this background, one should examine President Jagdeo's comments at the official opening of the Buddy's International Hotel. Mr. Jagdeo was right in some of his perceptions. But he was wrong in others. Let's deal with his strong points first. He took offence at those critics who constantly berate the character of the country. According to Mr. Jagdeo, they love to bemoan the underdeveloped state of Guyana.
He offered the example of the preference of foreign items over local ones. It was clear from listening to him that he was frustrated with the preachers of gloom in Guyana. Any analyst of the media would understand what the President has to endure.
There are people who just cannot accept that modern things are happening to Guyana. For example, the VCT Evening News chose as one of its lead stories, the President asserting himself over the loan to the hotel. The newscast quoted the President as saying he had no apologies to make for Government's financial assistance to the hotel.
I couldn't see why that was a lead item. As I argued in my column yesterday, state assistance to private investors is perfectly normal within the context of developmental needs.
A story has two sides however, and there are justified criticisms of this country and the way it has been administered since it became an independent country in 1966. There was a section of the President's delivery in which he felt that the perennial, pessimistic evaluators were responsible for how Guyanese are treated abroad and also the negative assessment Guyanese have of their own country.
There is so much one says in arguing back. Two formidable points come to mind instantly. One is that these critics have to be enormously influential and their ideas powerfully penetrating to cause Guyanese to feel this way and to influence how outsiders treat us.
In such a situation then, it may be necessary, then, for a compromise to be reached between the government and its critics seeing that the President finds that their power has a far reach.
The second relates to the past. In 1982, there was a Guyana bench at the Grantley Adams Airport. If I can count, that is more than two decades ago. In 2007, there is still a Guyana bench there. In 1982, all types of nasty things were said about and done to Guyanese in the region. How much has that changed in 2007?
Surely, it strains the imagination to put the cause of this continuation on the door steps of those that review the performances of the government of the day. Yes, there are unjustified criticisms against the government but there are also compelling reasons why commentators and editors castigate policy-makers in this land.
I can start with the very presentation of the President at the opening of Buddy's International Hotel. I got an invitation but by nature do not go to these things. I sat down with my wife to look at it on television then left to go on my computer because NCN couldn't get it right. The next day, I did something I don't normally do - look at the NCN 6 O' clock News. It couldn't get stared.
How often does the news a NCN begin at 6 0'clock? Yet look at the money and staff that that media house has. Why isn't condemnation of the incompetence of this place in order? Is it possible that NCN cannot get it right because politics has replaced professionalism?
This brings us right back to the compelling reasons we cited above. In some societies, impatience and vexation have replaced condemnation but in Guyana, its citizens endure all types of incivilities and indignities that come from the state sectors and the government.
We just “suck” our teeth and get on with our lives. Guyanese are patient people. How many societies would tolerate a modern country without traffic lights? We are getting them now but have you heard a single word of praise for the calmness and tolerance the Guyanese people displayed in that protracted period when there were no traffic lights?
The owner of a leading mechanic shop told me that his type of business will suffer a slump with the rebirth of traffic lights. He remarked that there wasn't a day that passed that an accident didn't occur at all the junctions that didn't have working lights. Sometimes our leaders expect not only reticence from us but they propose that we should be oblivious to the infrastructural necessities of what we should have as a modern country. Or are we not supposed to be a modern nation?
Look at the Railway Embankment. It is now lined with street lights from Sheriff Street to Industry. I ask readers to tell me if they see a coincidence in that the lights went up just one week before the Rio Summit is about to take place in a building on that very highway; the Convention Centre to be precise. The answer is no. There is absolutely no coincidence.
That important roadway was supplied with lights because of the Rio Summit. Why is a reprimand of the government for not having these lights before tantamount to preaching gloom and doom? People pay their taxes. They are entitled to modern facilities in a country in the 21 st century.
The private sector does not look after the installation of street lights, the state does.
I end with what I began - do people have to be told about the meaning of criticism in a society? They don't. The citizens of the world from the school child to the coffee lady to the white collar worker, all know that without eyes watching the governments and mouths that are not afraid to speak, the freedoms that we fought for over the centuries can go out the window in one single moment.
If any nation should understand that, it is Guyana. It happened here before. It should never happen again. It will not, if we continue to open our eyes and mouths.