THIS society and the Guyanese Diaspora are filled with some minds that are so contorted that the greatest psychoanalysts cannot mend them. On this very page last year, I wrote that Guyana, outside of the US, is the country with the most overbearing humans.
People in this country, out of hate for the government, write and speak degenerate things that are unbecoming of humans living in the 21st Century. You take a sample of these utterances, and they leave you numb for days, because you look around Guyana and you wonder if it is another world you are living in.

Governments must be criticised because they are not infallible; all governments make mistakes. All democratic governments know that many of the intellectual criticisms that float around the society contain some valid contestations. Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, in his just released book on leadership (see my column on it in my last Wednesday piece) advised leaders to pay attention to criticism.
But governments and citizens learn from castigations when they are rational, reasonable, respectful, but, very importantly, intellectually shaped so people can learn from the points that are outlined. Critiques of government are part of the democratic landscape.
I know of no leader in the world that would watch a journalist full in the eyes and tell that journalist he/she wished his/her country did not have an opposition or civil society, or an independent media. Minister Bishop Juan Edghill openly said on the Freddie Kissoon Show that an opposition is needed because it keeps government on its toes.

What we have in Guyana that passes for civil society is tragic; to use that term is most appropriate. The two privately-owned newspapers can hardly be distinguished from opposition parties. The Stabroek News ridiculed the President’s choice of clothes (an aesthetic field that only a foolish mind would venture into), accused the leadership of the ruling party of misuse of the English language, and plain lucky to be in government.
One civil society activist that heads an important NGO referred, on different occasions, to me and a senior minister of government as being ugly. Can you imagine this is what condemnations of the government includes?
All of these criticisms should never enter the vocabulary of political discourse in any country, and the Guyanese people should never accept these immoral misconduct from anti-government critics, because they lower our standing in the world. Intellectuals in society have a patriotic duty to expose this degeneracy.

Apart from the Stabroek News mentioned above, one can offer countless examples of how the contorted mind in Guyana is shaped. One situation that still has me confused is Red Thread. No one can make sense of what Read Thread did, and what Red Thread did was motivated by anti-government hatred. But if you do not like a government, should it push you to go to any length to destroy your credibility?
Once more, for readers who missed the sordid side of anti-government behaviour, here is Red Thread (RT) for you. The organisation (in fact RT consists about five persons) issued a press release with a demand that the police investigate a threat against the group. What is this threat that should galvanise the police to devote their overburdened time to?

RT read something on social media purported to have come from the Guyanese Critic. Here is what RT read and, amazingly, and unwisely believed it or used it to stem its fading rock-star fame. The licence plate of a man driving a white Toyota car, stated: We will attack RT head office, then move to assault the US Embassy. He was paid G$10 million by one of Guyana’s wealthiest entrepreneurs.
Incredibly, in its press release, RT openly said it does not know the businessman, and has never written or said anything about him. Commonsense should have led RT in two directions: Contact Guyanese Critic to ascertain if the social media post came from him, and, secondly, why would a man that doesn’t know you, and you don’t know him, want to kill you.

This is how anti- government activists behave in this country. How can anyone take GHK Lall seriously? This man wrote that the government was behind an attack on television personality, Travis Chase. Why would the government leave dozens and dozens of people who relentlessly sermonise against it and select an unimportant person like Chase? This is the kind of mind GHK Lall has, and it spills over into the society.
Mr. Ralph Ramkarran publicly said in an interview that for levelling some criticism against certain civil society groups, he received a “good cussing down”. Do you want to know who did the cussing down? It was an anti-government critic. See what I mean?

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.