One can look at the insane, ironic hypocrisy of US congresswoman, Lauren Boebert who is on video publicly engaging in behavior that was openly suggestive with her boyfriend and apply the symbolism to Guyana where there are many Boeberts though not in the sexual sphere. Hypocrisy is hypocrisy; it does not have to be in the committal of sexual acts.
I would like to look at the irony of having to pay to read the online edition of one of the four dailies in Guyana – the Stabroek News. It is the only printed paper you cannot read for free on the internet but is the only one among the four that, in a daily editorial, advises the government on the economy.
Someone should compile a book on ironies in Guyana. We are a country overflowing with ironies. Here are a few I can remember. There was a time at UG (I don’t know if the situation has improved) when management had completely broken down, but in that period UG was offering a degree course in public management and another in business management. That was a painful irony.
I was livid when my daughter came home and told me that on her examination timetable, there was a clash and UG authorities told her she should drop the course and do it the next year. It is the responsibility of all universities to ensure that students do not suffer timetable clashes and if they do, then it is the university’s responsibility to sort it out. A simple software can solve that problem.
In that period, students couldn’t get their registration sorted out, couldn’t get their grades, couldn’t get their transcripts and new employees had to wait for months to receive their first salary. All of this was happening at an institution that teaches students the science of management. I honestly don’t know if things have improved at UG. I hope so, I doubt it. Last year, the university administration threatened to sue me for libel. It would have been the first time in the world’s history a university sued a newspaper for libel for critical comments.
Another irony is the Transparency Institute – Guyana Chapter (TIGI). There was a big fight in 2018 between the two unions at UG and the then Vice-Chancellor (VC). In that confrontation it was revealed that not even the employer of the VC – the Council of the University – could know the VC’s salary.
At the time, the head of TIGI – Dr. Troy Thomas, a fierce government critic – was a lecturer (still is). So I used my columns to demand that TIGI get involved because this was a crucial matter of transparency at an important state institution. Dr. Thomas, in his reply to me in the newspapers, revealed that he could not comment since he works at UG. This had to be a mountainous irony. The head of a transparency body could not comment on the lack of transparency at UG.
After Thomas’ term was over, he was succeeded by a fierce government critic, Frederick Collins. This same transparency body which has the word, “transparency” in its name, did not comment on five months of opaqueness in the March 2020 election in which transparency was thrown into the mighty Atlantic. Now tell me if not is not a horrible irony.
There is an organisation in Guyana named Guyana Human Rights Association. It has the words, “human rights” in its name. During the five months of election rigging in 2020, the then Chief Election Officer discarded 115, 000 legal votes thus disenfranchising that number of citizens. Even the GECOM Commission that represented the APNU on the election, Mr. Vincent Alexander referred to that action as an act of disenfranchisement on the Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show. But this body that calls itself a human rights organization was completely silent. What a huge irony.
So we come to the Stabroek News. It has a business supplement each Friday where it looks critically at the government’s business policies. It has a daily editorial that seeks to correct the government in the areas of finance, business, and economics. But this is a gargantuan irony. For all its proclaimed knowledge of finance and business in Guyana, it knows nothing about business. If it did, then how come you can read the online editions of the other three daily newspapers for free but not Stabroek News? The Stabroek News, has been operating since 1986. That is 37 years. Yet, the Guyana Times and Kaieteur News came long after it and offer free readership. What a miserable irony!