IT is dangerous in any country to shut out the role of the media, opposition parties and civil society groups. I don’t think any politician in any country in any part of the world would dare to publicly say something to that effect.

Minister Juan Edghill did say on the Freddie Kissoon-Gildarie Show that he welcomes opposition parties because “they keep the government on its toes.” No matter how good the people are with power, you need critical voices and discerning pens to ensure things do not go astray.

I believe Fidel Castro started with ethereal intentions towards the Cuban people. But as the decades wore on and he became insulated from criticism, he couldn’t see that he had faults and those faults needed correcting. He ended up spending 49 years and four months in power. It is in this context, that critical views in a country are essential.

But critical voices in a society cannot arrogate to themselves the right to decide what the government should do and how the rest of the society should relate to them. If you do not like a government for its policies, form political parties and contest power. But you cannot dislike a government and be pompous enough to think that an elected government must listen to you because you know best. Who elected you?

I will always remember and will never forget an incident at UG when I was a freshman. Some lecturers were discussing Cuba at the top floor of what was then the Faculty of Arts. The group included one of the most liked literature lecturers at the time – Professor Bill Carr. The group favoured Castro but there was one dissenter, a lecturer from Puerto Rico named Hogg.

I cannot remember his first name. He kept insisting that he would like someone to tell him what are the alternatives for free election in which people vote for those they want to rule a country.

I keep insisting in these columns that the result of the local government election in 2023 has tremendous academic importance for understanding the political dimensions of society in Guyana. Despite a relentless daily campaign by the Stabroek News, Kaieteur News, anti-government civil society groups and frenzied hate propaganda since the Ali presidency came into being in 2020, the PPP won the LGE in 2023 and made tremendous inroads into PNC strongholds including the impossible site- Georgetown.

Theoretically, elected leaders need to pay attention to what their critics say and examine their adumbrations to see if they contain relevant thinking. But no elected government is going to do that when the private media and civil society groups degenerate into becoming blatant, inexorable, intolerant anti-government critics.

You lose your credibility when you become like this and elected leaders are not going to listen to you.
I cannot recall the number of times in writing dozens of thousands of columns over a 35-year-old career that I have warned detractors of government that they will be ineffective and will be ignored if they do not offer themselves as moral examples to be emulated.

In this country, no three words better describe the scenario of private newspapers and certain civil society groups as “a horror story.” There is OGGN organisation. I can reveal two emails from one of the leading players in OGGN sent to Kaieteur News owner, Mr. Glen Lall and shown to me by the then editor-in-chief Sharmaine Granger who was disgusted. The emails requested to have my columns dropped because I was criticising the anti-oil lobby.

These are the people who condemn the government for not listening, not paying attention, not reaching out. But they themselves are no examples of tolerance for free speech. Two of the leading players in a group named Article 13 intervened and got my response to Article 13 dropped from KN then published a nasty attack on me.

This is another group that accuses the government of lack of accountability but they remain contemptuously unaccountable to the Guyanese people.
The Stabroek News sent me an email informing me that they have information that I stole books from the National Library when I was 17 years old.

I am accountable to be people who read me and believe in my perspectives for the past 55 years. So, I replied to Stabroek News acknowledging that I did that. The very newspaper removes the mention of my name in any correspondence be it, letter, reporting or comments in its online edition.

The very paper refuses to identify the names of its board of directors.
Which government is going to listen to two private newspapers and a close circle of civil society cabals that see nothing positive the government does and have a shameless, anti-government agenda and who should be the last people to lecture the government about accountability?