…refracted
We learn that when light moves from one medium to another, it gets refracted or bent – especially when it starts already bending away from the normal. This is pretty much what also happens to power when wielded in Government by those with authoritarian mindsets. They ignore that what keeps power towards the normal at its point of original execution is the willingness of the power holder to follow the rule of law.
These rules were designed in the first case to keep officials on the straight and narrow – the normal. So imagine what happens when there aren’t even laws in place! Folks will just do whatever the heck they want to do – like with SARU presently. How can Trotman say with a straight face there’s no legislation in place to direct SARU – but they’re operating “legally”!! And this man’s a lawyer?
But SARU can operate without laws and Trotman can defend it without shame because of the authoritarian mindset that established SARU in the first place – “We know the PPP stole and we don’t need no law or evidence or whatever: let’s just hang ’em high on our say-so”! Way back when the appointments to the new administration were being made, you’d remember, Dear Reader, your Eyewitness reminding you of the group think that dominates when military types run governments.
It’s not that these fellas are necessarily “bad” or “evil” – but they’ve just been trained for decades to operate in a most extremely undemocratic fashion. When they’re told to jump – all they can do is to reply “how high” or “how long”. Soldiers have to be absolutely convinced of the rightness of what they’re doing. There’s no time for a Hamlet-like “to be or not to be” soliloquies when you’re charging into battle. But translated into the civilian field of operations, such thinking is the very essence of the authoritarian mindset.
And governance in a supposedly democratic polity isn’t a battle, is it? And we can’t just be expected to go along with “frontier justice”. After the years of accusations hurled without evidence by the Muckraker about PPP “siphoning off (and worse) of billions and billions”, even some citizens may be forgiven for concluding the accusations are true. But in a democracy, we have to accept folks are innocent until PROVEN guilty.
So Thomas and SARU are refracting a mindset in those directing him from the Office of the President that’s already anti-democratic and authoritarian. And their actions have become increasingly bent away from the normal. Citizens have to join and demand a return to democratic practices.
Or else there will be no rock when their turn inevitably comes.
…in the GNBA
We see the above thesis on authoritarian mindsets unfolding also in the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA). From the onset, the operative mindset of those establishing the board was the Muckraker’s insistence that ALL licences were given out illegally. The mistake made was they didn’t expect the new Chairman Leonard Craig to insist on following the rule of law. They were expecting him to follow the embittered and failed self-styled Committee Member Tony Vieira who was not only authoritarian to the bone, he was also seeking revenge against those who’d demonstrated he was “full of it” when he cried he couldn’t make money with his TV operation. He was just a terrible businessman.
So, we have a situation where Vieira moved from the beginning to undercut and undermine Craig’s insistence that “frontier justice” can’t operate when there are rules in place to adjudicate the Muckraker’s claims.
If the Government wants to redeem itself, it will have to sanction loose cannons like Vieira – or face the “voice of the people”.
Or the people will, have to speak.
…in Region 5
The refraction of authoritarian impulses was eloquently exposed by Lincoln Lewis in the farce playing out in the Reg 5 RDC.
Why else would APNU/AFC Councillors stymie the latter’s operations for an unwarranted apology to Prezzie?
