Two current local situations highlight the law of unintended consequences. The first involves a woman, the second Stabroek News, and both the government. One situation is winding down, but furnishes a solid precedent for the present and future; while the second is so well established that it has assumed the silhouette of unfolding folklore before our very eyes.
I begin with an individual who is (was) a supranational employee. Throw in criticisms, and then draw a map. And, suddenly, there is the Bulkan Standard. Whether present or absent, competent or incompetent, within or alien to the scope of her responsibilities, this person, this worker, this citizen was vested with an overarching obligation to protest an abomination. Rightly or wrongly, she was converted into the de facto plenipotentiary on the ground for the people of Guyana. She was their eyes, ears, and voice, and with all faculties concentrated on identifying and deploring a cartographic territorial invasion of embarrassing and far-reaching implications. In plainer language, the government has gone on record – and in the harshest of terms – to demand that this citizen should have raised hand and voice to point out a blatant indignity, if not atrocity; and that she should have objected and sought redress accordingly.
By this precedent and standard – the Bulkan Standard – private citizens are now deputized and licensed to identify and protest government invasion of, government hostility towards, and government disregard for principled resolutions involving various intra-border lines crossed in Guyanese life. The government’s expectations – indeed, demands – of Dr Bulkan re the Surinamese must become the yardstick by which Guyanese must hold its rulers. To do less cannot be anything but unpatriotic. Such is the law of unintended consequences.
The second example of this law in action is less lofty, and more quotidian. It started with SN’s introduction of its online blogging facility. Guyanese of all persuasions and varying objectives were enthusiastic in responding. In no time – and encouragingly so – there were representatives and views from the usual sources, along with some of the more balanced and independent minded. But, in a remarkable irony, this blogging channel facilitates more. In more than a few instances, it has become the happy hunting grounds for the ghosts that once haunted the Chronicle. Their kindred spirits now infest and cavort gleefully in their new electronic commune, compliments of SN. Some of these apparitions have even assumed multiple identities. This is the same SN – now scratching its head – that laboured so valiantly to draw chalk marks on its columns to scare these wretches away. And, as if this is not enough, the seconding of these creatures to SN has created space in the Freedom House Chronicle for official propagandists to rush in to fill the breach and strut their stuff. Essentially, SN has provided the space and opportunity on two fronts for the proliferation of the government’s registered copyright of a unique patriotism by shadowy patriots. Rather revealingly, some brave men who refuse to be associated with their mother and father’s names have attacked a woman through this new medium. Here is a witches’ brew of the law of unintended consequences, now eerily displayed.
Given these two developments, the challenge is for concerned and ethical citizens to hold their place in this, and every other, forum; and to take a stand in the pursuit of answers and results, as is now enshrined in the government ordained Bulkan Standard.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
