IN my Monday, November 25, 2024 column headlined, “Intellectual imperialism in Guyana, this is what I wrote: “Here is the list of institutions that many intellectuals in Guyana (but not only in Guyana) use as their standard bearer for judging democracy in Guyana. They are Varieties of Democracy (Sweden), Reporters Without Borders (France), Transparency International; and Freedom House (New York). Some intellectuals in each country arrogated to themselves the right to judge the world and they employ their cultural and ideological conceptualisations in arriving at judgement.”
There is a controversy right now involving one of those bodies listed above (Transparency International -TI) and the Guyana Government. TI has released its 2024 report and Guyana had dropped down the ladder, from last year. If you examine the reports of the four institutions listed in my November column, all the Western countries are above most of the Third World (TW) nations.

Why is this so? Because TI, Varieties of Democracies (VD), Reporters Without Borders (RB) and Freedom House (FH) are Western tools for achieving two goals: ensuring that the world believes that the West is the standard bearer for democracy and two, making sure that the world accepts that the Global South is not a receptacle of democracy.

How is this imperialist intellectualism achieved? By juxtaposing the West with the Global South, using the index of performance, and by defining terms and words that are Eurocentric. Take one country – Israel. Take one word – democracy. In all the ratings of TI, VD, RB and FH, the Western world and Israel are way above the majority of nations in the Global South. Why is this so? Because of the way they define democracy.

Central to their definition of democracy by these Western institutions is elections. A country is essentially free for these four institutions by party competition in periodic elections. But deconstructing the word democracy leads to other conclusions. Israel has periodic elections. It is a country of 8,000 square miles with approximately eight million citizens. Cuba is 41, 000 square miles with nine million people. Cuba does not have competitive general elections among competing parties.
In all the ratings of TI, VD, RB and FH over the past decade and beyond, Israel appears way ahead of Cuba. But how can that be? Cuba is not a violator of international law by the violent occupation of lands belonging to other nationalities and the perpetuation of an apartheid system. Israel is just that. By what methodology can Israel be above Cuba?

Then there is Germany? Germany is always in the top category of TI, VD and FH. But Germany has a policy which is a violation of international law and international morality. Germany has announced that Israel is Germany’s reason of state. Therefore, it is committed to the life of Israel.
Germany is naturally tied to a state that has perpetuated genocide on a nation that does not have a navy, air force and military and that state has killed about fifty thousand Palestinians, a majority of whom are women, children, and civilians. In any methodological use in the definition of democracy, Germany cannot be above the majority of TW nations in the index of TI, VD and FH.
It is pathetic and humiliating that in our own country, Guyana, there are people with education that cannot see the cultural imperialism of these four organisations. Can you imagine that VD puts India as partly democratic and not the United States when more citizens of the US have been arrested and victimised for protest action than India in 2024?

More protestors have been seriously injured by police brutality in France in 2023 than in any democratic country in the Global South, yet France in the index of all these four Western bodies is always high and always above countries in the Global South.
What about research that brings evidence that leads to definitive conclusions? None of these four bodies do any research and send researchers down to the Global South. What goes on is “word of mouth.” They hear from people who live in the TW and they take their word and run with it. They read editorials and letters in the newspapers and on that basis pass judgement on the Global South.

The height of absurdity is RB citing Travis Chase as a victim of state victimisation. RB read about a so-called shooting involving Travis Chase and formed an opinion without doing journalistic investigation. If the Government of Guyana should compile a list of its critics, Chase will be number 499 on the list.

TI also talks about erosion of press freedom in Guyana. Is it more so in Guyana than in the US and Germany? Only a colonial mind would think so.
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.