Pathetic propagandizing that must always be confronted

DO you know how many times I have written in this country, you have to beat your own drum, and you must do it because no one is going to do it for you?

This is Guyana where hypocrisy and double standards are overbearing.

Flawed creatures in this land will sing praise to their sycophants while ignoring those whose values they deliberately overlook because it suits their mentality I could offer you literally dozens of situations where I was the first to notice and publicise what I notice –people and organisations whose motives are suspect

So, we come to a man named Desmond Thomas who founded an organisation named Election Reform Group (ERG) three months after the horrible and horrific ordeal of five months of election rigging in 2020

My curiosity deepened as the months went by about ERG because it would expound on elections but missing from all the enunciations is any mention, even cursory, of the five months of election tampering

So what I did in early 2021 was to consistently request that the ERG offer its interpretation or even opinion on the 2020 general election. To date, the ERG has simply, absolutely and barefacedly abstained from any comment whatsoever on one of the worst attempts to hijack an election by a losing party anywhere in the world in the 21st century

I concluded that the ERG should not be taken seriously because it is a civil society group that is not objective I was proven right when the amendment to Representation of the People’s Act was promulgated The Act decentralises the counting process in Region Four because of the largeness of the electorate

Before the amendment , there was only a tabulation centre

Opposition politician

Timothy Jonas when asked about that change said that he sees it as merely administrative Implacable critic of the PPP regime, Christopher Ram echoed the same sentiment when the question was put to him But the ERG, who is supposed to be objective and independent views the establishment of more than one tabulation centre as a conspiracy

I have made up my mind after that biased position that the ERG had its agenda Now here is the latest episode in the politics of Desmond Thomas in a letter to the press I quote him; “ This approach ignores the critical institutional failures which is where our main obstacles lie . Were it not for those failures, we did not have to wait for oil money to develop.”

This is crass ignorance about the Third World and the role of colonialism coming from someone who puts his Ph D designation in economics behind his signature in his letter The institutional failures were as a result of colonial degradation exacerbated by lack of development assistance

Post - colonial nations experienced not only the pain of underdevelopment ( one hopes Thomas read Rodney ’ s “ How Europe Underdeveloped Africa ”) but systematic institutional distortions of which I will offer two examples

The Pakistani political theorist, Hamza Alavi wrote that post colonial countries inherited an overdeveloped coercive state apparatus because colonial maintenance of hegemony necessitated large armed formations

The second example is from education The colonial left a cultural infrastructure where the university curriculum emphasised the social sciences and the humanities rather than medicine and science Imagine we live next to the mighty Atlantic and UG never developed a diplomatic or degree programme in sea defence or oceanography Schools taught French rather than Swahili and Hindi

Now here is the intellectual mediocrity and paucity in the scholarship of Desmond Thomas laid bare for all who have read his letter. I quote him again ; “ And unfortunately, the country continues to experience what Professor Nigel Westmaas calls “societal decay at all levels” in Demerara Waves.”

Nigel Westmaas left Guyana about 30 years ago

Westmaas has never written any academic article in a book or refereed journal on the politics and sociology of Guyana Thomas takes a letter written in an online outfit by Westmaas which is owned by a man insanely hostile to the PPP leadership and finds it appropriate to quote This is a man whose group, the ERG, intends to educate Guyanese on election reform Let me leave my readers with both my emotions and my opinions

Thomas and his outfit cannot educate Guyanese on anything Westmaas cannot analyse even one day of politics in Guyana because he does not have the research experience to write on Guyana

I will agree with Thomas and Westmaas on social decay

It exists in Guyana It is hidden and dwells in places you would not believe

It can be found in organisations that Westmaas belongs to, in civil society groups that Thomas belongs to and in the private media that is an embarrassment to professional journalism.