I AM not one that is impressed or ever will be impressed by the letters written in the newspaper by a Guyanese woman named Janet Bulkan who chose to work in one of the coldest parts of the world – British Columbia in Canada- rather than at her own local university.
I resent people like Bulkan who have time to appear before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to ask that body to intervene in Guyana to stop oil production, but did not see it important to request the intervention of the commission to stop the election rigging that went on for five months in 2020.

Last Friday, Ms. Bulkan published a letter in the Stabroek News (SN). She wants SN to fact-check the contents of correspondence released to the newspaper by the Department of Public Information (DPI) which she asserts carries propaganda. In an acrobatic swing from her field of forestry, Ms. Bulkan lands in journalistic studies. She wrote: “Independent newspapers could employ an intern to fact-check the DPI.”

Ms. Bulkan speaks about independent newspapers in Guyana. I don’t know about forestry so I will not put my mouth in that direction. I would suggest Ms. Bulkan keep out of subject-matters she has no experience and training in. I don’t believe she can define in the Guyana context what an independent media outfit is.
Space would not allow for an elongated discussion of an independent media organisation. But from where I stand, to categorise the SN and the Kaieteur News (KN) as independent newspapers takes one into the realm of comicality and absurdity. If SN and KN are professional media entities then Rupert Murdoch is a saint and Fox News is the best source of news in the US.
But SN embarrassed Ms. Bulkan in the very issue – Friday, October, 18 – that Ms. Bulkan extols the independent press in Guyana. In that particular issue, SN chopped off 500 words from a letter written by the project administrator in the Office of the First Lady, Mr. Ravin Singh.

In his 700-word missive carried in the Chronicle of the same date, Mr. Singh took objection to an insensitive article on Venezuelan refugees in one of the SN editorials.
In his Chronicle missive, titled, “Xenophobia has no place in Guyana”, Mr. Singh noted: “Such sentiments risk fostering resentment towards an already vulnerable population, which, ironically, comprises many Guyanese who fled economic hardships and political persecution in the post-independence period. Rather than encouraging community solidarity, the editorial took an alternative route of reinforcing a dangerous narrative of us versus them”.

Is Mr. Singh right? Let’s quote the editorial of SN: “Guyana is too small a country population-wise and its bureaucratic structures are too limited and imperfect to be able to cope easily with a large influx of migrants. As things stand at present the public does not know how many Venezuelans are in the country.” This is an anti- migrant article that dangerously opens up these unhappy, poor souls to violent jingoistic attacks by Guyanese.

But in order to hide the point of Mr. Singh as to the damage the editorial can do to these hapless migrants, SN chopped the man’s 700 words to 80 words, stuck it near to the sport pages and published the following barefaced paragraph: “The writer of this heavily edited letter has comprehension problems.”
First, the newspaper guillotined the gentleman’s argument then insulted him by claiming he is incapable of understanding things.

This is the newspaper that Janet Bulkan refers to as independent. This anti-Venezuelan phobia is a huge sign that the great biologist E. O. Wilson might have been on to something when he wrote that humans have a xenophobia gene.
It becomes tragic in the Guyanese context that a country with the largest export of people, per capita, can manifest resentment towards people running from instabilities in their country and seeking an existence in our land.

I go to the National Park and the Eve Leary seawall each day, and when I see these people, I think of the hundreds of Guyanese I met in Canada when I was studying there and they were so desperate. My wife and I had Professor Bill Carr and his wife over for a lime. And when Bill was leaving, he asked for the coffee cups we served him with because he said when he returned to Guyana, those cups will be like gold nuggets.

The SN editorial carping about these Venezuelan refugees in Guyana reminds us of Shakespeare when he wrote:
Oh judgement!
Thou art fled to brutish beast
And men have lost their reason

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.