IT’S  election season and with that comes lofty prognostications of miraculous makeovers chomping at the bit to be unleashed on the populace at a moments notice, or to be sprung if just this or that were done.
Complementing these claims is the disparagement or even vilification of hard won achievements or initiatives.  This mix and match of spin masterfully turns logic on its head.

‘…this is election season in Guyana, and there will be sound bytes filling the air.  When that occurs, recognize the spin for what it is.’

For example, the building boom is proffered as concrete proof that the common people are getting a raw deal.  One presidential candidate is clearly a disciple of the Carl Rove playbook.  Rolling out Carl’s counterintuitive modus operandi “attack your opponent’s greatest strength, and do so with your greatest weakness”; he challenges listeners with the rhetorical question: “Is better buildings or bigger buildings a better country?”
This is not the response being sought, but any building after years of existing structures just falling to pieces somehow seems a welcome indication of positive change, much less the strong uplift in building and maintenance.  Maybe the country should hang its collective head in shame over the revitalization and improvements.
Another example:  whereas Guyana is one of the leading countries in the world in education spending relative to its GDP, prompting high demand all over the Caribbean for our trained teachers and nurses – the whole education system is called to shame over every shortcoming, whether it be insufficient resources to fund capital improvements or some students not performing up to standard.
Again the same candidate in a reference to the education system: “… for GDF soldiers/recruits coming in – as a 12 year old test only 17% pass that test, what does that tell us in terms of even if a soldier coming into the army can’t even read or write – we’re talking about the education system.”
There is something amiss with this line of reasoning, when Guyana provides universal education whereas many more prosperous countries do not; and Guyanese students consistently top the regional examinations – not to mention the thousands in the education system who have dedicated themselves to make this happen.
How do we avoid being manipulated by such bold misdirection?  Especially when the allegations are voiced by educated people who would be expected to know and to whom people look up.  It’s not easy.  Freedom of speech does ring out as a right to be enjoyed by all citizens. However, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche did say something in his cutting tongue-in-cheek style, that once digested, could be helpful if adapted for understanding “political prophets/saints”:
Nothing is rarer among moralists (political prophets) and saints than honesty. Maybe they say the opposite is true, maybe they even believe it. For when a faith/ (real belief in what they’re peddling) is more useful, more effective, and more persuasive than conscious hypocrisy, by instinct that hypocrisy forthwith becomes innocent: first principle towards the understanding of great saints.
Context makes a lot of difference.  That Guyana’s economy grew 3% in 2009 is very good.  That it did so while the world economy contracted by -.8% is something else.
But even this outstanding performance has to be understood within the context of global dislocations over the last two decades – effects of factors such as globalization, technological advances, the internet, rising fuel costs, global warming, the changing nature of the workforce, etc.
Source: Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez,
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(1), 2003. Updated to 2008

High levels of unemployment and a widening of the gap between rich and poor people has become the curse of nations.  In the United States which is often cited as the standard to aspire to, Inequality.org reports that: “The top 1 percent of households in the United States received 8.9 percent of all pre-tax income in 1976. In 2008, the top 1 percent share had more than doubled to 21.0 percent.”   This steep increase retraces the steady improvement following the 1929 crash.
This structural dislocation is not restricted to the USA.  It is a global phenomenon.  Who has not heard or read of the decimation of the middle class in the developed world, and people losing their homes?   It is a phenomenon that Guyana is working to counteract, and has had some decent success with despite the odds.  Yet the candidate infers from this largely global problem that Guyana is purposely creating unequal opportunity.
If he picks up the May 3, 2011 edition of The Economist, he can note their remarks on the international pressures playing out. The following is a direct quote, “American society is more unequal than those in most other OECD countries, and growth in inequality there has been relatively large. But with very few exceptions, the rich have done better over the past 30 years, even in highly egalitarian places like Scandinavia.  This suggests that while national factors can influence the degree of inequality growth and can mitigate (or not) the negative impacts of that growth, there seem to be broader, global forces pushing inequality up across countries.”s
Global structural changes have redefined the nature of the job market.  There are now less low-skill jobs.  Mechanization has reduced the number of bodies required, say, to run a mine; cranes and lift trucks do what stevedores used to do; and to be economical on the global market harvesting uses big combines.  At the other end there are not enough bodies with the skills to fill technical jobs.
The response in Guyana has been the development of an ICT Strategy, The Poverty Reduction Strategy (wellbeing includes items such as access to health care, education, housing etc. and not just income alone).  There has been an expansion of social   services.  Shelters for the most needy are being constructed (something that has also attracted some negative spin).
There are Initiatives to decrease the cost of power and to install fiber optic service, to diversify agriculture, train more doctors, and build clinics and schools.
This is some of the work that is going on.  There are other areas that need more attention where genuine critique or ideas would be valuable.  But this is election season in Guyana, and there will be sound bytes filling the air.  When that occurs, recognize the spin for what it is