Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 07, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
What is wrong with the Alliance For Change? Are they living in some fairytale? Is dreaming their present pastime? Are they imagining things?
I can understand that this party, which is yet since the 2006 General and Regional Elections to hold a public rally of any significance, has opted to be an opposition party through paid political advertisements; I can also appreciate their rationale in drawing the attention of the international community to the problems of Guyana.
But do these people honestly believe that the visiting heads of governments of the Caribbean Community would take them seriously about the need for a Freedom of Information Bill and the breaking of the State’s monopoly in radio?
When this country was in a State where the opposition parties hardly had an avenue to make their voices be heard to the general population, when there was only two radio stations owned by the government, no television stations, no independent daily, when a photographer working for a religious newspaper was knifed to death, when the paper of the main opposition party was denied a licence to import newsprint, when reporters were openly harassed in this country and journalists forced to compromise their professionalism, the governments of the Caribbean could not have been bothered about those things.
Why are they going to be bothered now that this country has more television stations per capita than any other country in the region? Why are they going to be bothered when there are now four daily newspapers, two of which can be considered independent and only one is owned by the State? Why are they going to be bothered when some of them saw firsthand what happened in this country when the previous Heads of Government Summit was held here?
What is the AFC trying to achieve through a Freedom of Information Act? I have explained before that this is a myth and there are millions of legitimate grounds, including confidentiality, ongoing action in progress and national security considerations which negate the release of documents and information previously classified or withheld. Freedom of information is a myth. There is no country in the world where this exists, none. If it did, a great many world leaders would have been before the World Criminal Court.
What point is the AFC trying to make about the radio monopoly. The political parties in this country have little to say. At least the PNCR is trying, by hosting a weekly press conference. The AFC is also trying with a weekly television show which is the perfect remedy for insomnia.
The AFC ought to be reminded that unless there is broadcast legislation, there can be no break of the radio monopoly or for that matter the licensing of new television stations.
Regulation of the media is a far greater priority than freedom of information legislation. Our experience has shown that the free media has caused far more destruction and is still today far more irresponsible than the State–owned media. The licensing of new television stations and the breaking of the radio monopoly without broadcast regulation is an invitation to anarchy in this country.
Every political party has to be realistic about what needs to be done. And there is nothing wrong with a political party daydreaming about future glory.
But when a party such as the AFC engages in some imaginary thought process, they should try not to project this onto the wider society, such as what they did in the fourth-to-last paragraph of their paid political ad, issued during the recent Heads of Government Summit.
In that paragraph, the AFC spoke about a movement being underway to restore hope and confidence in Guyana. Now, unless the AFC is speaking about the government of Guyana, they must be mistaken, because they certainly could not be speaking about the three-man picket exercise outside the Summit, and definitely not about the AFC.
So where is this movement that is taking place? It has to be in Disney Land – a land of make-belief.
However, even if the AFC can be faulted for having delusions of grandeur, why the resort to such degrading language about removing the blight that has settled over our land? Blight?
We may have poor governance and even a government that is out of its depth when it comes to managing the affairs of the country, but to speak about removing the blight can lead to the wrong interpretation.
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