A country that does not assess its functionaries has no right to exist

Jun 25, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I have long made up my mind that Guyana’s main problem is the psychic damage of its people, which I truly believe emerged in the turbulent period of what I refer to as “the three-pronged rage,” meaning the duel that turned deadly between the PNC, PPP, WPA, the middle class and civil society from 1970 onwards. The aftermath of that battle, which climaxed in the destructive reign of Jagdeo, has deeply scarred this nation, and has reduced its capacity to think rationally, logically, to embrace humane feelings and birth visionary ideas.
Not for a moment do I think that the continuation of the problem is political leadership only. The mental sarcoma afflicts the entire society. I will have more to say on the horrible decline in the wholesomeness of the WPA, but that party’s current debased political culture is symptomatic of the magnitude of the psychological destruction of this nation. But as I alluded to above, the rut lies not only in the political leadership, but in each of us.
I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you chase away all political parties and allow civil society of professionals, trade unionists, business people, church people, NGOs, youth organizations to form the government, the same backwardness, mediocrity and inept, inane, jejune government we will get.
The problem is in the nation as a whole, not the political leadership only. I firmly believe that Guyana’s youths constitute one of the most backward groups of young people anywhere in the world. In command societies where the population is fearful of their intolerant government, I seriously doubt you can find a more sheepish set of students as we see at the University of Guyana. UG students are an embarrassment to modern civilization.
After 2015, we took to the streets to usher in a new era, but it was not to be. A pyrotechnic example of this is the University of Guyana Council. It is even more barren than when the PPP imposed its own Council from 1992 onwards until 2015. What I have been hearing from the academics makes me think that UG may be slipping backward. The thought is frightening and depressing, because this country knew how insipid the university became under Jagdeo and Ramotar. And to think you have a new government with a new council. The bonfires of mediocrity light up that place at the moment.
I read a news item in the press and I turned to my editor, Adam Harris and I said; “Adam, did they assess these people?” Adam replied, “I hope so.” I am referring to the recent promotion of a number of magistrates. There cannot be a country in the world in the 21st century where you would promote judges, generals, magistrates, heads of corporations, head teachers and so many other categories, without the periodic assessment format.
I do not believe those magistrates were assessed. I will withdraw this statement and apologize, but I very much doubt it. I know my country. I have lived here all my life. We have come to the end of one year of the tenure of the three-year appointment of the new Vice Chancellor of UG. I wrote about UG last Friday, so I don’t want to repeat myself But it is my firm opinion that the UG Council will not sit down in a studied session and analyze his accomplishments and separate the peripheral from the substantial. That Council will not evaluate the failures if any, the successes if any, of the Vice Chancellor. Life will go on as normal. Each day a joke is born in this country and that joke, adds to the tally of the ocean of clownish acts that we are literally drowning in.
I read that the Government has assembled a panel to evaluate applicants for the posts of Chief Justice and Chancellor. The panel only has persons trained in law. Surely at a commonsensical level, you add non-law persons to the panel, so they can act as a bulwark against the possibility that because the applicants are from the legal profession and those evaluating them are from the same profession, there could be a less objective judgement. New Zealand once had an Ombudsman that was not a judge.
For some strange psychic reason, the people in Guyana are averse to thinking outside the box, of birthing novel ideas and seeking to go beyond the banal and the ordinary. My heart goes out to the young proletarians from class-driven Guyana that have to stay in Guyana and live among an encroaching ocean of deadly waves of mediocrity.

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