I DO not share the political perspectives on Guyana as embraced by Mr. Christopher Ram but I recognise that Mr. Ram is a public intellectual who is familiar with what goes on in the world. In fact, whenever we talk, our chat is friendly and respectful.
Two weeks ago, in a conversation, he opined that the world is going in a right-wing direction to which I agree. I would say that this right-wing direction is extremist and very dangerous. Knowing that Mr. Ram is supposed to know his stuff, I was taken aback by his description of the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, as a strong man.

My problem is threefold. Is he a strongman and if he is then who else is a strongman in the countries of the world and who in fact classified him as a strongman. Let us answer the third question first. The Western media started that classification for two reasons. One is Orbán is not a pro-Western leader. He does not align his policies within the holistic agenda of the European Union. He supported the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump and he has a friendly relation with Putin.
Why does that make the popularly elected leader of Hungary a strongman? Let’s move to the second question. If Orbán is a strongman, does he deserve that description? The answer is both yes and no. Mr. Orbán does not come within the classical model of democratic leader as we have in CARICOM. Many of his policies have autocratic dimensions but here is where revisionist political theory comes in.
Mr. Orbán is not alone in his autocratic ways. He lives among a sea of strongmen in countries that the Western media refuse to so label thus the title of this column. In fact, when you make a comparison with what takes in other democratic countries, there is in fact less human rights violation in Hungary.

Let’s offer some examples. Stabroek News columnist Ashma John, who holds German citizenship, wrote the following about Germany: “Over the past year, as democratic as Germany pledges itself to be, we have seen excessive police brutality involving protestors, censorship, raids and outright harassment. We have heard of discussions surrounding Nazi-style deportation policies.”
In Germany, it is a criminal offence to publicly say the following words: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Is the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz a strongman? He is if you are going to use Orban as your template. Ms. John wrote about what has happened in Germany the past year. But the past year, the situation was more graphic in the USA.
There have been police raids and police assaults and arrests of pro-Palestinian protestors. University professors have lost their jobs. Students have been expelled from their universities. Foreign students in the US have been deported. Artists, singers and actors, some of whom are global superstars have been horribly victimised.

Given what Ms. John described in Germany and what occurred in the United States, why haven’t the Western media labelled their leaders as strongmen? So why describe Orban as such? The elected president of Turkiye, Recep Erdogon, is also portrayed as a strongman in the Western media. There is more presidential autocracy in France than in Turkiye and Hungary. President Macron in France is never referred to as a strongman by the Western media but he practises more strongman politics than Orban and Erdogon.
If any leader suits the appellation of strongman, it is Macron of France followed closely by the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni. This lady has not one democratic bone in her body and comes across as someone who is not uncomfortable embracing fascist ideological orientations. There is never any mention in the Western media of the strong woman that rules Italy.
I am sure Mr. Ram knows that Netanyahu of Israel is never mentioned once by the Western media as strongman. This is an incredibly cruel man, facing corruption trials in his own country and is facing an imminent arrest warrant for war crimes by the International

Criminal Court. I am sure Mr. Ram knows that one year after the committal of genocide in Gaza, the Western media have refused to allow their reporters to use the word, “genocide” in their reporting.
The most liberal Western media house in my opinion has been the Guardian of Britain. Yet that newspaper fired its cartoonist after 40 years for featuring Netanyahu in his drawing. This is the extent to which the Western media have gone in their politicisation of journalism. I am sure Mr. Ram knows better. The Orban strongman remark must have been a slip of the pen.

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.