ONE of the mysteries in polemics, debates and exchanges in the mainstream media and social media is how others fit me in the national frame and choose not to assign themselves and others a position in the national discourse on Guyana.
I am described by Nigel Westmaas as a PPP attack dog, as a PPP lapdog by Mr Anand Persaud, the editor-in-chief of the Stabroek News and as a Trumpian narcissist by Henry Jeffrey.

Now the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has joined my detractors by accusing me of being part of the PPP’s campaign to control civil society organisations and NGOs. The GHRA’s press release on me as expected was carried by the Stabroek News (SN) and given more than half a page.

The GHRA and SN have rejected the contents of my column of Thursday last in which I argued that in the forthcoming legislation on NGOs and civil society groups, the law must require them to conform to the values of accountability, transparency and financial auditing.

This is not only morally required, but is commonsensical in human society. I will return to the advocacy of that column in another column, but let’s look at the political categorisation of me. I have no relationship with the PPP and the Government of Guyana. I am not paid by the state. The Chronicle does not pay me.

Most of my analyses on state behaviour tend to highlight democratic behaviour and democratic tolerance by the Ali presidency. If one chooses to refer to me as pro-government, then they can argue that they arrived at that conclusion because my writings consistently put the Ali presidency in a positive context.

Now here is a murky, opaque picture that needs some attention. If I am pro-government, why are those who relentlessly pursue the government and see everything wrong, secretive, undemocratic and intolerant about the PPP administration not anti-government? Is the SN, Kaieteur News (KN), GHRA, the usual suspects, Allisa Trotz, Nigel Westmaas, anti-government? If the answer is no, then why am I pro-government?

The level of acidity in the hostility of the GHRA, SN, KN, the usual suspects, the anti-oil lobby and academics like Westmaas and the weekly column titled, “In The Diaspora” against the government is far higher, more graphic and more pronounced than the level of pro-government sentiments in my writings.

You read some of the anti-government vitriol that saturates the editorials of the SN and KN, the contents of “In The Diaspora,” the press releases of the GHRA, the writings of Nigel Westmass (I will reply to his brother’s hate- filled diatribe last Saturday) and the usual suspects whose hate stares you in the face. These sections of Guyanese society come across as hate-filled people.

You literally have to hate the Government of Guyana that just to get at it, you demand that an accused charged will alleged murder of 20 people have the charge reduced to the act of arson. You have to hate the government to demand that with urgency, the state should scrap the oil industry.

But there is much more than hate that is involved in this process. It is also incitement that can lead to instability too horrible to imagine. Look at the role SN, some of its columnists, the GHRA, “In The Diaspora,” played in September 2020 in Cotton Tree in Berbice when two drug-related murders were given a racial spin.

When I look back at the role the GHRA played in the Cotton Tree eruption, then I feel a huge dislike for Dr Bertrand Ramcharran for writing to me to tell me not to criticise Mr Mike McCormack of the GHRA. People who have an intense dislike for the government and write with emotional outpourings against the government do not consider themselves as anti-government, but by some weird, psychic contortion, I am classified as pro-government.

But there can be an epistemological solution to this confusing narrative. Why don’t I admit that my writings are pro-government and those who hate the government conclude that they are anti-government? Why don’t I admit that I am an attack dog for the PPP and Mr Anand Persaud, Dr Allisa Trotz, Nigel Westmaas, the anti-oil lobby, Ms Danuta Radzik, Ms Vanda Radzik, Mr Mike Mc Cormack, Transparency International-Guyana chapter, GHK Lall, Mr Glenn Lall and others like them admit that they are attack dogs of a different type?

They will not admit they are anti-government because what is involved here is a dangerous level of human superiority. In the eyes of these people, those who favour the Government of Guyana are of an inferior mentality. To associate with the government makes you inferior. To criticise the government makes you virtuous and democratic. This is psychological descent.