Provocation of confrontation

In this very delicate period of our nation’s history, as the parties in the National Assembly manoeuvre through the ‘new dispensation’, there are forces determined to provoke only confrontation. They have defined the present alignment in starkly Manichean terms: the forces of good (the opposition) arrayed against the force (in this case, singular) of evil (the PPP executive). Under such a narrative, of course, there can only be one salutary, and indeed moral, outcome – the complete defeat and rout, if not extermination, of the ‘evil’ PPP executive government.

The latest statement of this apocalyptic and dystopic nightmare for Guyana was outlined in an editorial by the Stabroek News – “APNU’s deals with the government” 04-23-12.

The SN did not mince words in its views of the PPP government, notwithstanding its oft-proclaimed assertion of ‘impartiality and objectivity”: “For the first time since 1992, the opposition has been gifted – via the elections results – with the opportunity to hold the blatant excesses of PPP/ Civic governance in check.”

Referring to those who voted against the PPP, it asserted this was a consequence of “he twisted governance, corruption, shady deals, a stagnant economy and the enriching of a select few while poverty remains insidious in parts of the country”.

In the absence of any poll to ascertain the grounds for voters’ preference, the above conclusive statements clearly expose the prejudices of the SN. Does SN really believe that the only economy in the Caribbean (barring Suriname) with positive growth for the past five years can honestly be described as “stagnant”?

The SN’s insistence that this “twisted governance” be addressed in a confrontational manner is made quite explicit.

While accepting that “APNU’s engagement with the government could lead to the passage of the 2012 budget” and “that would be a positive development for the country”, the newspaper asks whether its self-referential “ills” of the budget would be cured through this approach.

Aside from its bootstrapping premises, the SN is asserting that concessions cannot be extracted through negotiations. It slyly recommends that “the opposition should by, all means, use the instruments available to it in the budget approval process to achieve its objectives”.

Are negotiations not one of these “available instruments”? On the concessions actually extracted by APNU from the government, specifically the ones concerning Linden, the SN bemoaned those were due to “quite hare-brained negotiating” tactics, since the “the government had already been under immense pressure to deliver all three of these and would have had to”.

The SN was commending the strident rhetoric and marches – and the promises of escalation – in Linden as the ‘pressure’ that would have delivered those concessions.

What the SN is encouraging, apart from the confrontational approach spiralling out of control in intensity, is also its geographical spread. Linden is not the only community that has problems, but at least there have been programmes for more than a decade that have attempted to ameliorate their adverse conditions. Billions of dollars have been pumped into the community. The country well remembers such claims of ‘government spite’ leading to armed gunmen taking over one community and waging violent war against the state and innocent citizens.

In labelling the APNU negotiated concessions as the result of “deals”, the SN derides them as emblematic of “the historic engagement of the duopoly that has bestridden the political landscape for the last 55 years or so and which has left the country wallowing in the backwaters of development and deeply divided”. The SN makes it pellucid that it supports the strident approach of the AFC in the present contretemps.

Every institution, even those that declare an “Olympian objectivity”, is allowed freedom to support a political party. What we are objecting to is not only its questioning of the bona fides of APNU to negotiate with the government, but its disparagement of the approach itself and its encouragement of confrontation.