Government has the right to reply

Dear Editor, and our environment make us hypocrites?”

THE right to free speech is fundamental and inalienable. It is a natural right.

Yet, free speech is one of the facets of individual freedom most often attacked, and most often denied. No society can thrive without the freedom of expression. Guyana offers some interesting insights.

During the height of PNC authoritarian rule, free speech was impossible. Burnham and his Cabinet dominated the media, and made sure that opposition publications (such as The Mirror and Dayclean) were starved for newsprint. PNC officials had the radio stations at their disposals. Yet, that did not stop them from breaking up meetings and rallies with goon squads, some of whom were imported for that sole purpose.

Today, the exact opposite is true. We have perhaps the most open media in the world. In this space, newspapers, television, and social media can and do anything they want. Every day, blatant disinformation, distortion, and even outright lies are peddled in two opposition-friendly newspapers and elsewhere. Yet government officials are swiftly condemned if they do the right thing and respond to the disinformation.

Why should the President, Vice President, Cabinet ministers, and other government officials not have the same right of response that every other source in this country has? Why should the government stay silent while misleading statements, many of them utterly dangerous, are bandied about in what has become a 24-7 disinformation campaign?

A big problem in Guyana is that two major newspapers are directly connected to the civil society elites, and to the opposition parties. What we have then is a comprehensive system where the opposition peddles falsehoods and these are carried by the news outlets as news. When government officials correct the record, the guilty parties find favour within their circular system of protecting disinformation under the banner of free speech.

The Constitution of Guyana guarantees free speech. The press and media houses have that right in this country.

That right should also be fully extended to government officials.

Well, in many ways yes!

This is because the real intent of the letter is not to express real concerns about our country, but to make a political announcement, namely to picket the Office of the President. Grassroots women are usually at work earning an income to feed their families; bourgeois women have the time to become the front with political motives.

Red Thread is a known outfit of the same WPA, the same WPA that aired a call for racial violence and subversion of the state, also based on what must be constructed as ‘racial resources.’ Red Thread is a fossil. Only a few people in Meten-Meer-Zorg ever heard of it. Personalities connected to the WPA drive across the Demerara Bridge to take in some country-side, and then claim that they are the voice of the oppressed.

In contradistinction to what the fossilised Red Thread claims to be doing, we need to go to Leonora today.

President Ali is there with the staff of the Office of the President, Ministers, and heads and staff of agencies, meeting one-on-one with anyone who has a problem, a need, a request.

The President and his team solve problems as large as providing updates on the new high-span bridge, right down to solving the problems of people who are having issues with their NIS, old age pension, or public assistance.

When last did Red Thread meet with people outside of Georgetown (for coffee) in order to help solve their problems, rather than to stir up trouble, take a few photos, and then supposedly claim the right to self-symbolise as the grassroots.

Political opportunists love to use grad symbols, those that appear to be at once organic and universal, sexy (in the words of Ralph Ramkarran).

These symbols such as grassroots are intended to impress the diplomatic community. Fundraising is well served by the grassroots badge, and foreign NGOs do indeed gravitate to groups that claim to be “people-centered,” “climate sensitive,” and other such universal expressions of good citizenship.

What needs to be done is basic research. Ask anyone outside a few WPA elitist cells if they ever heard of Red Thread.

I can guarantee you that you will draw blanks. I did this little test on Thursday (yesterday) and not a single person at the Office of the President Region Three Outreach at Leonora had ever heard of the group.

Red Thread can do some good community work by going to site in Buxton where Ogunesye called for subversion, and declare their commitment to the rule of law.

That would be a real display of concern for our country.

If not, the charge of hypocrisy stands.

Yours sincerely, Dr. Randolph Persaud

Sincerely, John

Jacobus