Dear Editor,
As people around the world celebrate Human Rights Day today, it is a good time to reflect on freedom of expression.
Legally there are two separate components of freedom of expression – first the right to express your views about the behaviour of government /public authorities, and second the right to obtain information so that your views are based on fact not government propaganda. Both components are preconditions to a healthy democracy and a life with dignity.
Freedom of expression entails the right to dissent, to challenge public authorities, to say what you think as an ordinary citizen but it does not extend to certain kinds of expression such as inciting violence or racial hostility, which have no place in a healthy democracy. Freedom of expression is not only a right but carries a responsibility to hold the government and public bodies to account for what they are doing with public power and public money. Democracy is a fragile thing, easily subverted by politicians who want power without responsibility – what the former British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin (1920s/1930s) referred to as the ‘prerogative of the harlot.’
I accept that it is difficult to hold politicians and public officials to account when they hide information and try to avoid public scrutiny, when they think they know everything and when their attitude is ‘how dare you question us’. This sort of secrecy is characteristic of bullyism and creeping tyranny.
But it is our legal right to know what public bodies are doing. The Caribbean Court of Justice in Ramon Gaskin v Minister of Natural Resources et al emphasised that governments must act with full transparency so that the public can identify wrongdoing and that “A demonstrated commitment to openness and accountability is especially required given the massive investment in subsea drilling for oil currently underway in Guyana.”
But what are we getting? Commissioner of Information Bunny Ramson refusing to provide citizens with information. An Environmental Protection Agency that has been lambasted by the national court for its secretive conduct and acting in unison with Exxon. A government that owes Stabroek News $70.7 million dollars and threatens to withdraw advertisements. The failure of President Ali to take any corrective action whatsoever.
This conduct undermines the freedom and the ability of all of us to live with dignity. Perhaps we need to remind the president, the ministers, the MPs, and all holders of offices paid out of the public purse that thanks to the awe-inspiring courage, resilience and intelligence of enslaved Africans, and the determined resistance of Indians to indentureship another form of servitude in Guyana, none us has to live on a plantation where ‘Massa’s’ word is law. We live in a constitutional democracy in which the president, ministers and MPs are our servants not our bosses.
Our constitution states that we are the proud heirs of the “indomitable will of our forebears” and that “we will safeguard and build on the rich heritage won through tireless struggle and bequeathed to us by our forebears.” Perhaps the richest heritage of all is our freedom. That heritage and our forebears’ courage and sacrifices are betrayed when Guyanese citizens say nothing in the face of abuse of power or worse collude with it.
I pay tribute to Chris Ram, Danuta Radzik, Vanda Radzik, Fred Collins, Sherlina Nageer, Troy Thomas, Elizabeth Deane-Hughes and all those other courageous citizens (too many to mention) who protest against abuse of power and go to court to put an end to secretive behaviour. I pay tribute to Anand Persaud safeguarding in Stabroek News the proud tradition of free speech established by its founder David de Caires, to Glen Lall and Kaieteur News, and to all those journalists who have resisted pressure and ‘oil money’ and who continue to investigate and question government with a view to telling citizens what is going on. In return we Guyanese must be true to our Constitution and use our freedom of expression to sustain a healthy democracy.