Mr. Vishu Bisram had a letter published yesterday (Sunday) in praise of an editorial of the Stabroek News (SN) of Saturday. What that means is Mr. Bisram’s letter was published the day after it was sent in. Normally because of the volume of letters they get, newspapers hardly publish a letter the next day it was sent in.

I guess SN felt the need to publicise the panegyric Mr. Bisram showered on the newspaper thus the priority printing. When a newspaper can attach so much importance to what Mr. Bisram says of it, I guess it feels it needs the publicity.
Mr. Bisram’s was responding to the Saturday editorial in which Saturday Man lambasts the government for what Saturday Man refers to as the inclination of government to victimise people who speak out. I will confront that SN editorial in another column (maybe on Tuesday) but for now, I will concentrate on other contents of Mr. Bisram’s letter which is utterly nonsensical.

Before that though, readers may find Bisram’s opening live interesting. Here is what he said about the editorial: “Thank you for that brilliantly written editorial.” Can Saturday Man write brilliant editorials? Or is it that that Bisram cannot distinguish between brilliance and mediocrity. He ought to because Bisram has stated that he has 6 Masters Degrees and 6 doctorates. I wrote in one of my daily columns, a few weeks ago, I don’t think any other human on Planet Earth is so educated.

For the rest of my argument here, I will stick to two aspects of Bisram’s output yesterday. He wrote: “The leaders of civil society organizations should not cower into fear. They must continue to speak out on issues….” Mr. Bisram himself has been the beneficiary of a society where people hardly speak out. If people are willing to speak out then both SN and Mr. Bisram would have received some pyrotechnical confrontations over very misleading things they write and I am being moderate in using the term, “misleading.”

Had the Guyanese society zeroed in on Mr. Bisram a long time ago, then maybe Mr. Bisram would have had to explain his secret or mysterious or invisible polling company named NACTA. For 30 years, Mr. Bisram has been publishing the results of frequent polls he conducts in Guyana. But to date no one knows who the local officials are that Mr. Bisram works with. There is absolutely no person in Guyana that has been identified with the work of NACTA.

I have written a huge amount of material on this subject over the past 20 years as a columnist with all the newspapers here in Guyana and over those two decades Mr. Bisram has not issued even a one-line publication about NACTA and who functions with it in Guyana and where is the site(s) of its operation in Guyana. It should be noted that the media in Guyana the past 15 years (yes 15 years), have stopped using the findings in Mr. Bisram’ polls as news items. Mr. Bisram informs the nation of what he finds in his surveys by sending letters to the newspapers. This can easily be verified by a Google search.

Mr. Bisram cannot be that naïve not to know that his frequent attacks on the Government of Guyana will bring responses from intellectual defenders of the government and he will have to answer questions about his polls. It has already started with former High Commissioner to Canada, Harry Nawbatt. I am absolutely sure Mr. Bisram is aware of the ancient saying that “people who live in glass house should not throw stones.”

I move to the second aspect of Mr. Bisram’s letter which has annoyed me profoundly. I quote him: “A true democracy guarantees the right to speak freely without fear of retribution. In USA, one can speak freely about any issue relating to the government or a politician. There is hardly likely to be a retribution. The US constitution and the court protects (sic) free speech including the right to criticize the government and your employer.”

This is the second time in two months Mr. Bisram has repeated this controversial perception and this is the second time I am responding to him. In my first rebuttal I pointed to the massive police arrests and prosecutions of people speaking out against the Israeli genocide. Hundreds have been arrested and hundreds of students have been expelled from their respective universities for speaking out. Dozens of foreign students have been expelled from the US for denouncing Israel.

Space would not permit further discussion but I end with informing Bisram who has 6 Masters and 6 doctorates that I believe that the federal Supreme Court in the US is not of higher quality that the Caribbean Court of Justice.
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.