Latest update March 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 21, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
One of the reasons why politicians tend to have enduring relationships with editors, commentators and journalists, is because they get a feedback that is vital to them. Ministers, when they move into the war room, they are cut off from the main currents in their country. They lose a sense of what is taking place on the ground. They pick up the vibes through their ongoing relations with the media.
A minister is simply glad to have in his/her office a journalist that he hobnobbed with 12, 10 years ago. And as the coffee is sipped, the first thing that comes out of the mouth of the Minister is; “Tell me what the people out there are saying about us?.”
Guyana is only one exception to this reality. In countries like France, the UK, the USA, Ministers maintain the long standing relations they had with certain media operatives, not because they want things from the media (they know the media cannot go in that direction) but simply because they want to know what the people are saying and thinking.
Guyana is an exception. We have an overwhelming flow of narcissistic chauvinism that Burnham and Jagan first introduced into politics, that our rulers since those two men came on the scene onto this day believe they know more of what the Guyanese people are thinking that the activists and reporters and commentators who are virtually on the streets every day of the year. You think you can tell Granger or Nagamootoo or any Minister that the people are losing hope? You cannot, because they will tell you that you are either biased, exaggerating or not seeing things from the right perspective.
It doesn’t happen in most countries but it is a conspicuous thing about the people with power here in Guyana. And it makes absolutely no sense telling them that they are blind or too busy or too insensitive to see what is taking place. I had a conversation with one of the most highly placed aides in the government who told the table that rural folks are fed up with Jagdeo’s aggressive bad-mouthing of the government thus, his words have lost their steam. The table was amused.
We pointed out to him that Jagdeo’s words will continue to have steam once the Coalition makes egregious mistakes because Jagdeo will use those mistakes to play to the gallery. It is obvious that this aide spends too time in his office than on the ground. If PNC leaders think that Georgetowners find Royston King amusing, then they have their heads in the sand; Georgetowners want the head of King.
If editors and commentators should write about the responses they get from the daily publication of their opinions, then that is all they would write about day in day out. You just listen and move on. After I published that column last Wednesday about the government’s use of US$7 million to refurbish the Convention Centre, the inundation of indignities have not abated. I wonder if Minister Cathy Hughes would find the reaction worrying or just be dismissive.
I would like to share some comments that came my way. The first one was an email asking me why should the State spend $1.4 billion on the Centre when Guyana cannot do DNA testing. After that, it was text telling me that the public mortuaries are never functioning consistently so why not use the money to repair them. A telephone caller suggested that Granger put that $1.4 billion in the educational system.
Quite a number of folks wanted to know why the government wants to spend so much money to repair the Centre.
Of course the Centre will be reconstructed and that will happen because analysts like me and others who are political watchers will be dismissed with the comment that we are just carping on things that we do not like, but there are people out there who support what the government is doing. None other than the WPA’s Tacuma Ogunseye wrote that the Guyanese people support the retention of NICIL.
The reality is that after so many mistakes in such a short space of time, optimism is fast fading and pessimism has returned. One of the biggest supporters of the Coalition when it came to power in May 2015 is one of Guyana’s most learned and promising legal minds. He told me Wednesday evening; “Freddie I cannot in all seriousness tell young people to remain in Guyana.”
When I heard that, a bolt of despondency shot through my soul. This young man was one of the most ardent supporters of the Coalition election campaign. Indeed, pessimism has returned!
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Freddie I fully agree with you on the attitude of this administration and the PPP will be laughing all the way back into office. I met President Granger some years at a meeting overseas (before he was elected) and I told him how much I enjoyed reading your columns since you seem to have your head to the ground on what is taking place down there. I asked what did he think of your opinion. His response was dismissive .. ‘Freddie has his own agenda’. I was shocked and made me stop and think. I admire a free press and your critique on the state of affairs in Guyana I always found to be on point with a few exceptions. Now that he is the leader I find that the current insanity taking place with the administration to be a reflection of his thinking.
‘on’ Wednesday.
Its not party, politics, ideology nor anything of that sort. It is our mentality. Guyanese mentality. Come next election this coalition won’t even know why they lose. Let’s just pray that they don’t lose to the PPP with its “parallel economy”. Maybe a party from space will rescue us.
Freddie, blind loyalty is the keynote.
One strong ardent never would say anything against their party people, said that ‘is a new government and they would make mistakes like anybody would, so we have to forgive them’.
Such limited mentality IMHO
Granger is not a politician
He is in the wrong position.
He depends on his ministers but his choices were poor.
Now anyone reading this would say that I don’t like the government and that is how the guyanese mentality operates.
Just like Granger, I would say that such persons have their own agenda!
Being a supporter does mot mean blind loyalty.
I am fairly learned and have worked in top positions of authority. I think I can see clearly and I think that inept behaviour and attitude cannot be accepted as normal.
Being indecisive, dodging reality, fearful of acting strongly are so obvious that only blind loyalty can offer acceptance excuses.
Granger is not a politician, a reality that supporters are glossing over.