SHUTTING US UP

It was rather amusing to see that Mr Panday described the killings as “political” and then not lose a second in making political capital out of the event. His provocative prediction is that TT can go the same way because we have a similar demographic to Guyana. But, as we all know, in spite of that fact our history of colonial settlement and rule and our post-independence social, political and economic histories have been quite different from our neighbour’s.

Of course, one should never say “never” and anything is possible, but it would be more interesting to look at recent events through a prism other than the old and tired one of race. The attack on the Kaieteur News printery was meant to terrorise the populace and the media so that a certain group could exercise its personal or political will without hindrance. That is the important point, not the ethnicity of the perpetrators of the crime.

Mr Panday warned Mr Manning not to block the democratic process here, but democracy doesn’t always guarantee people’s right to know or the desire of some to silence others. I would argue that censorship is alive and well in this state where there is a depressing lack of openness by our democratically-elected governments, of all hues, and by business, too.

Of course, there are state secrets intended for our security but there is no free and steady flow of information about anything, from financial transactions — because of commercial pressure, to information on environmental, scientific or technological matters. I could ask a list as long as a gorilla’s arm of why we don’t know the details of this or that. This secrecy creates tension between the media and the powers that be and between the people and their government.

But I am quite stunned by how much collusion there is in that secrecy and by the degree of self-censorship at work in Trinidad, and I imagine Tobago, except when it comes to a bit of mauvais langue. Self-censorship is the most corrupting and dangerous form of censorship. Freedom of speech and the freedom to make public are among the most important of our rights and yet there appears to be a preparedness to relinquish them on the part of TT citizens.

I detect a terrible fear of retribution and I suspect much of it, well-founded or not, is due to the fact that the average TT citizen understands little of how our moribund systems work. Among those who should know there is a belief that vested interest profits from the lack of transparency, accountability and downright — or what could simply be called obfuscation.

Functional illiteracy and poverty are two other important contributing factors to the subtle but effective lack of democracy and freedom of expression that exist in TT. How many people in this country read books? And if they could and wanted to, how many bookshops or libraries could they find between Sangre Grande and Mayaro, between Rio Claro and San Fernando, or between Valencia and Matelot, Maraval and La Fillette or Bacolet and Speyside? To be able to read, and to have the possibility to, is the source of much freedom and that makes it a controversial, powerful weapon that others may want to deprive us of.

In the former totalitarian states controlling what people read was paramount. Those states used the written word to brainwash their people, but now even China is having to find other ways of maintaining the efficacy of her propaganda machine in the face of the growth and power of the ubiquitous information superhighway.

But how many computers would you find in every one hundred homes in those same TT places I mentioned above? And what might be a comparative figure in Guyana? I do not have the answers but I do know that Barbados and Jamaica double and treble our use of computers and I would hazard a guess that the situation is a whole lot worse in Guyana.

In whose interest is it that this should be the case? Certainly not the poor and ignorant.

So, politicians should really spare us the depressing rhetoric of race politics and rather tell us the simple truth that their policies and the short-sightedness of business have been responsible for the growing poverty and depth of ignorance of the people of this country, who I think are most unlikely to start shooting media workers. And neither the TT government or private interest needs to use gunmen to commit such “dastardly” an act, as Mr Manning described the Guyana killings, when they already have very effective means of keeping us quiet.