One of the problems with the present crop of lawyers is their very cobbled and cribbed exposure to concepts outside a most narrowly definition of ‘law’. Take the resuscitated case where Freddie Kissoon accuses former President Jagdeo of ‘ideological racism’. From the onset the president’s lawyer (the attorney general) should have interrogated Kissoon’s usage of the term ‘ideological racism’.
And he could have shown that the president – under Kissoon’s definition – could have absolutely no responsibility, even if any racist acts could have been shown. Finally it took Kissoon’s own lawyer, wannabe Senior Counsel, Nigel Hughes, to pose the question this week. And according to the Muckraker’s report, “Kissoon told the court that ideological racism has to be defined by knowing what ideology is, and he relied on two European philosophers, Carl (sic) Marx and Louis Alatehssur (sic).
We can’t fault some poor reporter not to know about Althusser, but dear oh dear, “Carl” Marx??? Ah… Karl must be spinning in his grave at Hyde Park! So let’s look first at what Marx said was “ideology”. From his book, “German Ideology”, Marx proposed that ideology functions as the superstructure of a civilisation: the conventions and culture that make up the dominant ideas of a society. He elaborated: “The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of their dominance”.
Now, even though “vulgar Marxism” would exculpate Jagdeo from any personal responsibility for any racism (according to Marx through Kissoon) because of its structural (non-personal) basis. This structuralism was made even stronger by Althusser. For him, ideology does not “reflect” the real world but “represents” the “imaginary relationship of individuals” to the real world; the thing ideology (mis)represents is itself already at one remove from the real.
According to Kissoon (via Althusser) Jagdeo is a mere automaton interpolated as a concrete subject! How do you ascribe personal choice (existential or otherwise) and responsibility to him?
The real deal is that Kissoon is just spouting self-contradictory trash – knowing that the neophyte lawyers can’t challenge him. It’s like when Hughes asks him (rather leadingly) whether if he made ‘references” to his sources and Kissoon says “yes” – in a bibliography! For any scholarly work, the individual citations should have been footnoted so that they can be traced. But what can you expect from the wankers we have in court today!
Security fake
You’d think with all the years Granger spent in the security sector (from 1965-1990 – twenty-five long years) he’d come clean about what really ails the Guyana Police Force. Last week he claimed: “Politics, poor training and resources to blame for police incompetence”. Now this takes the cake!
Spending on the police Force has jumped Gy$275 million in 1992 to Gy$4.4 billion by 2008. An increase of over 15 times!!! And this doesn’t include the billions in capital expenditures. Does Granger see all the cars the police can tool around in nowadays? The rehabilitated police stations? Sure more can be done. The forensics lab is ne the way… But give Jack his uniform. The GPF has been well taken care of as far as resources are concerned.
And training? The government decentralised training. There are now three training schools. What about Granger demanding that that police personnel become more diligent in training?
Then “politics”. This is too rich for comment. We’ve already spoken about the PNC invidious efforts to split the forces’ loyalties by playing the ‘kith and kin’ line.
Education question
On the scholarship announcement by the president recently, there was some ambiguity. For CSEC, say, the two “top” students will get the scholarships. We hope this will not just be by numbers but – like the CXC model – by fulfilling set criteria. Let’s not play favourites with education.