Oct 26, 2016 Source

This must be the only country in the world where you cannot pick up the newspapers and read the comments of a university scholar on any major national issue with which the nation is preoccupied.Don’t take my word for it; just Google any newspaper in the United States after the Trump sex scandals and WikiLeaks revelations of Clinton’s e-mails made news and you will see how many university professors were analyzing the consequences.

Google the newspapers in Brazil on the impeachment of the President, and in the UK over Brexit and you will see the plethora of comments from the academics of how they see things unfolding. It shatters your psyche to think that for over thirty years now, the academics at the University of Guyana cannot offer their fellow citizens a published opinion on the mountain of issues that saturates this nation.

It undermines the faith of the young generation and it drives into them the sense of despair and uselessness. They figure that it is dead society and it makes no sense to become involved in the moral process of speaking one’s mind on issues that affect the country one lives in.
Two politicians have taken a different pathway and one desperately hopes their efforts will make small dents in the political culture of Guyana whose chief characteristic is the instinct of fear. Khemraj Ramjattan is the leader of one half of the ruling coalition in government. He heads the Alliance For Change.

Mr. Ramjattan has repeatedly said that the government of which he is a part is doing well and there are not thorny issues that could undermine the solidity (my word) and stability of the coalition.Mr Ramjattan does not let his role in government vitiate his party’s fundamental position in adumbrating what his party stands for. In so doing, he takes positions that are different from his coalition partner, APNU.This is what the backward political culture of this country needs; the desire for politicians and stakeholders to openly polemicize on controversial, complex problems. It will encourage people to think for themselves and galvanize them to publish their thoughts. The result could only be a better country.

This is my angry accusation against the Working People’s Alliance. I have repeatedly advised the remnants of that party in these columns to articulate their agenda for the Guyanese people now that the WPA is in government and to let the Guyanese people know when they are against policies that militate against the interest of the working class.
The WPA has been morbidly silent on any departure from their core values as practiced by the very administration that they are part of.
While the AFC has proposed significant changes to the anti-narcotics law in relation to amount of possession of marijuana, the WPA is yet to be heard. I could go on about the unprincipled silence of the WPA, but I have written enough about that the past two weeks.

Ramjattan does not agree that the State should invoke a law that allows the State to compulsorily acquire private property. He said for the AFC to agree to that, the situation has to be one of extreme relevance. One can take this to mean that the AFC will not vote in Cabinet for the compulsory acquisition of private property on Carmichael Street just to extend the physical accommodation of the offices of the Attorney-General and the Ministry of Legal Affairs.Who says that Ramjattan’s position will cause the Coalition to disintegrate? The only persons uttering those thoughts are those who belong to and prolong the primitive political culture of this country.

From the era of Burnham and Jagan right up to the Granger/Nagamootoo team, politics in Guyana has been characterized by the fear to disagree with party and leader.What Ramjattan and Sherod Duncan have done should be a sign of encouragement for all stakeholders and the people of Guyana in general.Mr. Duncan is the new kid on the block. He is too young to understand how the old boys’ network operates, too young to comprehend the requirements of politics that Burnham and Jagan stamped on the anatomy and physiology of this nation, too young to fathom how GROUPTHINK works.

So never mind he is in the City Council representing the APNU+AFC Coalition, he pontificates on wrong roads, mis-directions, unworkable policies and corrupt practices.In simple terms, Mr. Duncan says that he puts nation’s interests before party’s agenda.His iconoclastic journey, together with Ramjattan’s insistence on speaking on how the AFC feels, is undoubtedly a perfumed breath of fresh air. Will that breeze last?