…in Gaza and Guyana
The world should wake up to what’s going on in the Gaza strip…but sadly the story will only be told from the standpoint of the Israelis. And this is something that we in Guyana should wake up to. Long before we heard of “fake news”…there was the slanted news written by those that controlled the media in the North. The only thing was, we didn’t know that the news was invariably so one sided that for all intents and purposes it was really PR for the favoured party.
The New York Times, for instance, is owned by the Schultzberger family…of impeccable Jewish ancestry. Now the Schultzberger family would’ve never been thought to be biased since they had also had such impeccably Liberal credentials. They could define the gold standard for news reporting since no one questioned their claim to be printing “All the news that’s fit to print”. But from the moment the State of Israel was founded, it had a friend in the New York Times.
The slanting comes in two forms – first there’s the actual distorted reporting…which wasn’t used too much since it could be caught fairly easily. But even then, who would be there to match the reach of the Times to circulate the real deal? “Silencing” was and remains the preferred technique. Here, the story of the ‘other’ is not told…or told in such a sketchy way that the fleshed out story of the favoured party always elicits the greater sympathy. For instance, today you will read in great detail about individual personalities and perspectives of the Jewish side …like Netanyahu and his army career.
We will read and hear about his family and their fears and hopes. But who on the Palestinian side gets a comparative granular treatment. In fact, the Palestinian leaders are all “terrorists” who are reigning terror on poor Israel. Yet of the dozens of Palestinians killed in the face off over the opening of the US Embassy at Jerusalem, most were killed by sniper fire…but they’re not terrorists.
In Guyana we have a similar situation of silencing with our 5700 sugar workers who have been fired and the 2000 who’ve been let go by private cane farmers who’ve lost their market. We hear in great detail in the Chronic – the paper of the people of Guyana – about the losses of GuySuCo; even today about some favoured business associates. But where have they taken the time to write about the tragedy that’s unfolding in the sugar belt?
What the authorities are doing in precipitating the same dynamics as in the Gaza strips.
One where the youths will have nothing to lose even if they take on the authorities with slingshots.
…and anti-constitutionalism
Constitutionalism describes an order where man is governed by the rule of law as spelled out in great detail for those that will govern the state in the Constitution. But what we’ve seen unfolding in Guyana is a determined and sustained attack on the notion of “constitutionalism” by the PNC-led Government in general and President Granger in particular.
The most recent is the latter’s dealing with appointment of the two highest judicial posts of the land – the Chancellor and the Chief Justice as if it were a tennis match. And this is not a coincidence since the Judiciary is the guardian of the Constitution – and the rule of law. The Constitution spells out the procedure for appointment of these two officials – one that was inserted specifically to ensure there was consensus in filling these critical positions.
The President proposes names and the Opposition Leader must agree. If he doesn’t, then it is up to the President to do one of two things: submit new names or make acting appointments. In the latter instance, it is obvious even though consensus wasn’t reached, the unilaterally appointed individual (s) should not be an outlier.
And President Granger’s choice of Benjamin isn’t just an outlier – but an Army officer trained by Granger.
This will not do!!
…and the roundabout
Have you, dear reader seen roundabouts in operation? It’s like a comet plunging into a planet’s gravitational field and being hurled out.
As one writer said, Guyanese just don’t have the discipline to control that “hurl”.
