You are surely an unintelligent person if you do not know that the words people use indicate what their beliefs, conceptualisations and ideological orientations are. This is basic as kissing the palm of your hand. You do not need to go to university to know that people manifest who they are by the words they use.

Since the Ali presidency came into existence in August 2020, the Stabroek News (SN) has launched the inexorability of anti-governmental sermons. It has been a relentless expenditure of energy by SN since August 2020 on bad-mouthing the Ali presidency.
Since August 2020, I have done more than a dozen columns content-analysing the editorials of SN. I just did not use analysis only but cited facts. In those dozens of columns, I actually reproduced the words SN uses to describe the PPP government. My conclusion is four fold. One- SN is aggrieved at the loss of power by the WPA, AFC and by the man, Granger himself because SN sees that loss as the political defeat of the Mulatto/Creole class.

Two – SN’s descent into an anti-government frenzy involves the use of a vocabulary that makes it impossible to distinguish the paper from an opposition political party.
Three – the paper’s abuse of the sacred tenets of journalism makes it a threat (along with Kaieteur News) to democratic stability, but such a danger is substantially reduced by the fact that social media is the preference for young people who do not read those SN editorials. Four – SN researches the anti-Jagan newspapers of the 1960s and copies their styles.

Kit Nascimento wrote a letter in last Wednesday edition of the Guyana Chronicle with the title, “Are the owners of Stabroek News contemplating entering politics.” When I read that title, I asked myself if while using his keyboard, Kit shouted out, Eureka! Eureka! I have argued since 2020 that SN has become intricately entangled with politics.

I am afraid Kit does not utilise class analysis because the topics he writes on do not call for class analysis. But he should have employed class analysis when he wrote his Wednesday letter. You have to use class analysis if you want to understand the relentless condemnations of the government by SN that border on insane hostility.

Class analysis would reveal that SN was founded and funded by the Mulatto/Creole class (MCC). David DeCaires and Miles Fitzpatrick were key pillars of the crème de la crème of the MCC in the forties and fifties. These were very elitist Portuguese men who went to private boarding schools in the UK. When they returned to Guyana, they became the faces of the MCC.

DeCaires and Fitzpatrick approached almost every conceivable MCC businessman for assistance to launch SN. Businessman Stanley Ming told David Hinds in an interview that he was one of the persons whose investment was sought and he agreed. For an in-depth description of the saturation of MCC personalities in the formation of SN see the book by Anna Benjamin, “The Birth of Stabroek News.”

SN’s ownership was always intimate with MCC personalities who had fervent political inclinations. When David Granger’s monthly magazine, “Georgetown Review” could no longer survive, DeCaires bought the magazine for an enormous sum, a small fraction of which no one in Guyana would have paid. SN owners have always been close to MCC personalities like David Granger and those in the WPA and AFC. And I am talking about an enduring closeness.

It is not any accident that the paper’s legal advisor is MCC personality, Timothy Jonas who is also on its Board of Directors. Mr. Jonas as the entire country knows is the leading light in ANUG.
Nascimento would write another letter, this time, accusing the SN of formally entering politics if he knows the irrational anti-government personalities that are on SN’s board including a man that literally hates the PPP as a political party. If Nascimento knows the MCC personalities that do editorials for SN, he will certainly accuse SN of being an opposition party.

When the current co-owner, (the other co-owner is rumoured to be its editor-in-chief, Mr. Anand Persaud and also a strong anti-government figure has large shares in the paper), Isabelle DeCaires, throws tantrums at the government it is no accident. She grew up knowing that her father’s paper was owned by MCC people and she continues that tradition.

Kit is a very experienced man, one of the longest serving public figures in the Caribbean, so he must know that words betray how people feel and what they keep in their Freudian minds. The SN is a shameless, partisan, politicised newspaper. It is both a comical and silly mind to even attempt to say that SN is independent. Its support for Israel, as opposed to other newspapers in Guyana, should be forcefully condemned.

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.