Perspectives
Part 1
“The bottom line is Guyana unhappily bears the misfortune of accommodating a growing false journalism; crooked political writings passing for journalism among some columnists; writings intended to induce incitement and excitement to the usual suspects’ belligerent behavior that typify their local pastimes. These pen pushers peddle a false battle cry and an evil battle hymn today, painting Guyana as an elected dictatorship, and a failed state, and indeed, the ad nauseum allegations of corruption, money laundering, and narcotics connections. But then mine eyes see the new emerging election season upon us, and provides me with instructive insights into the minds of the pen pushers; insights that propel this unique breed of so-called journalists to metamorphose into the new irresponsible political opposition.”
SOMETIMES I wonder if political wisdom has suddenly surfaced among some unique breed of columnists, editors, and paid letter writers of this country; who seemingly and arrogantly posture themselves as owning and controlling all the solutions to developmental problems here; these would include columnists (including the Freddie Kissoon gang) and, indeed some other assumed journalists; but on closer introspection, their solutions fail to withstand rigorous testing; their solutions are not grounded in the full breadth of data and information; their solutions are false.

The bottom line is Guyana unhappily bears the misfortune of accommodating a growing false journalism; crooked political writings passing for journalism among some columnists; writings intended to induce incitement and excitement to the usual suspects’ belligerent behavior that typify their local pastimes.

These pen pushers peddle a false battle cry and an evil battle hymn today, painting Guyana as an elected dictatorship, and a failed state, and indeed, the ad nauseum allegations of corruption, money laundering, and narcotics connections. But then mine eyes see the new emerging election season upon us, and provides me with instructive insights into the minds of the pen pushers; insights that propel this unique breed of so-called journalists to metamorphose into the new irresponsible political opposition.
And this new opposition wears a snarling ‘fringe’ characteristic that today has ubiquitously, but superficially, decked the halls of Guyana’s politics, preaching the imminent coming of doomsday, should the PPP/Civic’s reign graduate into longevity.

Zakaria believes, too, that many countries are not ready for democracy and that the only way that economic advancement is possible is through having a dictatorship; and note his favorable observations on these dictators: Park, Suharto, and Pinochet – leaders responsible for public order and economic development!!! My foot!!

The columnists and letter writers among this idiosyncratic breed of pen pushers romanticize over their new bride, ‘elected dictatorship’, a term that Lord Hailsham concocted, but quickly capitulated to the world in 1976; making the new bride (elected dictatorship) a divorcee.

And some in Guyana may feel proud to be inflicted with this ‘elected dictatorship’/‘illiberal democracy’ disease because Guyana shares company with Great Britain and the U.S. in this regard.

Well, there is nothing to feel proud about a false label even if it does not suck and even if you happen to be in good company.

Lord Hailsham referred in his 1976 concoction to Great Britain as an ‘elected dictatorship’; then we have Fareed Zakaria telling us that the U.S. is an elected dictatorship/illiberal democracy because there is too much democracy in the U.S., almost paradoxical. We need to examine Zakaria’s perspective here.

This approach may require examining the reviews on Zakaria’s book published in 2003 The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, a good chunk of which expands on the paper he wrote in Foreign Affairs in 1997. Here, I draw critically from Ferguson, Kagan, Przeworski, Plattner, among others.

This unique breed of columnists tells us that Guyana is an elected dictatorship, clearly drawing from Zakaria’s work. Zakaria’s 1997 paper ‘The Rise of Illiberal Democracy’ in Foreign Affairs presented its essential argument thus: (1) that elected governments gravitate toward absolute sovereignty and attempt to sustain this absolute sovereignty through impinging on the rights and freedoms of people in the society; (2) this occurs in a situation where there is too much democracy; and (3) that while constitutional liberalism, that is, a bundle of rights and freedoms, can lead to democracy, democracy itself does not make institutional provisions for these rights and freedoms.

And so we need to establish one important point here; and that is, this unique breed of pen pushers in Guyana, by embracing Zakaria, body and soul, will have to agree that Guyana does have democracy; for in the first place following Zakaria’s lead here, you need democracy first, in order to begin your ‘infringement’ practices.

But here Zakaria distinguishes between ‘democracy’ and ‘liberalism’ that he approximates to Freedom House’s concepts of ‘political liberties’ and ‘civil liberties’, respectively.

And so, even on Zakaria’s evaluation, Guyana comes out well, as Freedom House since 1993 has consistently rated Guyana as high on both political and civil liberties. Keep in mind that several of Guyana’s columnists ad nauseum label Guyana as being undemocratic.

And then there is the claim, again following Zakaria’s concepts of ‘illiberal democracy’ or elected dictatorship that this elected PPP/C Government continuously encroaches on people’s rights and freedoms; let me say that constitutional liberalism is quite strong in Guyana; the fact that the Government allows and encourages media critics a voice to issue daily anti-Government distortions is testimony to the presence and sustainability of constitutional liberalism in this country. I will have more to say about this next week.

Zakaria is an advocate for authoritarian and aristocratic governmental structures in both form and content. He is able to conclude this way because he makes a distinction between ‘liberalism’ and ‘democracy’, definitively asserting that too much democracy breeds infringement of people’s rights and freedoms. And so, if in Guyana, there is encroachment of rights and freedoms, then in Zakaria’s eyes, Guyana has too much democracy. The columnists should take note!!!

He agued thus: ” democracy was not the necessary, appropriate, or even desirable form of government for many if not most countries around the world…” because he believes that democracy is the chief architect for the evils around the world “…in many developing countries, the experience of democracy over the past few decades has been one in which majorities have — often quietly, sometimes noisily — eroded separations of power, undermined human rights, and corrupted long-standing traditions of tolerance and fairness.”

Harvard’s University’s Professor Niall Ferguson sees Zakaria’s book on illiberal democracy at home and abroad as a “classical defense of aristocratic rule” and as an alternative for American democracy; and sees ‘authoritarian rule’ as a superior alternative to the developing world’s democracies. However, it is Zakaria’s separation of the two concepts ‘liberalism’ and ‘democracy’ that allows him to makes a case for his advocacy of aristocracy and authoritarianism, to which Ferguson clearly alludes.

But Plattner of the Journal of Democracy sees Zakaria’s distinction between ‘liberalism’ and ‘democracy’ as theoretically invalid. Plattner notes thus: “countries that hold free elections are overwhelmingly more liberal than those that do not, and countries that protect civil liberties are overwhelmingly more likely to hold free elections than those that do not.” “This is not simply an accident…it is the result of powerful intrinsic links between electoral democracy and a liberal order.”

Zakaria believes, too, that many countries are not ready for democracy and that the only way that economic advancement is possible is through having a dictatorship; and note his favorable observations on these dictators: Park, Suharto, and Pinochet – leaders responsible for public order and economic development!!! My foot!!

If these columnists in question are taking the lead from Zakaria and labeling Guyana an ‘elected dictatorship’, or an ‘illiberal democracy’, then they must go all the way and advocate, too, for authoritarian rule for the developing world, including Guyana.

Don’t forget that Zakaria believes that too much democracy is responsible for the world’s evils; for Zakaria clearly believes that dictatorships have been more successful than democracies in promoting economic growth, and economic wealth is critical to producing democracies in the developing world.

But Przeworski observed in the Harvard International Review, “that dictatorships promote development and that development breeds democracy are both false.”

This unique breed of columnists blindly following Zakaria should take note!!!