Thinking too much of themselves

Mar 23, 2018 Letters

Dear Sir,
I have been following the discussions in relation to the revocation of Dr. Hinds and Mr Lewis columns from the national Newspaper the Chronicle. I could care less about the revocation, but I am somewhat amused at the defence put up by the twosome.
According to both of them this maneuver has the finger prints of the Government written all over it. This big bad Government directed their underlings (according to them) to cease and desist carrying their columns.
Hinds in the Kaieteur News of March 18 called on the Government to “cease being small minded and spiteful.” He further iterated after learning of the board’s decision “that not many people in Guyana have the courage to stand up for principle.”
He adamantly declared that “it’s a political decision.” A hatchet job in other words. Lewis on the other hand was less effusive, he claimed in the Kaieteur of March 11 that “it would be naive to think that the Editor-in-Chief unilaterally disposed of myself and Hinds as columnists.”
And why not? I have been in the newspaper profession for quite some time and in that profession you learn that the Editor-in-Chief makes all decisions; including personnel and the news in the news room. You are also reminded that the Editor-in-Chief has the pen, to either scratch or to write.
For both of them to think that it was a directive of the coalition reminds me of my old grandmother Clar Clar, who in a situation like that would say “you think herring of yourself.” Yes they do. Their egos are so large that they completely ignore what the Editor-in-Chief said, and steadfastly believe that it is the order of the Government that held sway.
If the Government is so perturbed by their writings, then this Government should immediately shut shop and slink away. If the firing of cap pistols by these columnists so discombobulate this administration, what are they going to do when the real war starts. Remember if “Jesus was here he would recommend we vote PPP;” and ” if the coalition wins the election Black people are going to come into your homes and rob and kill you.” How soon we forget.
Hinds’s writings never impressed me. This is what he said in Grenada while making a speech back in 2016. “I argued that the Caribbean has stood still in DEVELOPMENT terms partly because our Governments have avoided REVOLUTIONARY changes. Our independence leaders once in office, become reformist at best, never going beyond the confines of political and economic correctness.” Words from a man who with his cohorts in the WPA fought down the most revolutionary thinker we had in Mr Burnham.
He and the other professional writers, and TV analysts and activists in Guyana, are excellent at criticizing. Ask them for one coherent political idea to move this country forward and you will encounter mutes.
Hinds really believes that this spiteful and small minded Government was becoming queasy because of his influential missives.
I have heard Lincoln Lewis, Trade Unionist by profession and activist by choice, complain strenuously how Stabroek News “butchers his letters.” I am sure that he knows that the Editor has a pen in that. I would not want to put down his activism, but I would think that his activism would be connected more so with the unions. He was around when the PPP splintered the trade union movement. That unlikely episode never occurred during the time of the Burnham’s dictatorship.
Lewis with all of his political activism, and his trade union know how, could not put the trade union movement back together again. Come Labour Day each union takes to its own excesses. And the irony is unions are a synonym for “solidarity”. In Guyana they could not be further apart.
He who could not put his own house in order, has the temerity to criticize how another house is being administered. Oh’ and by the way, the subvention was reinstated by this spiteful Government.
The words of Ronald Austin Jr., in the Chronicle of February 20th article, ‘the Enemies of the Republic within the Gates of the Republic’, sums up our present position. “While we look beyond our borders to identify and nullify threats to the Republic, let us not rule out the possibility that the biggest threat to the Republic may dwell within the gates of the Republic, singing the National Anthem and reciting the Pledge.”
Milton Bruce

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