When I was growing up in Guyana in West Dem, we had no electricity in our house, no telephone, and, in the early days, not even a radio. As a result, there were two ways to communicate or to get information: you wrote a letter or, for real emergencies, you could send a telegram. For the folks living next door, you could do as Archie Bunker once said on the US television series ‘All in the Family’, “Just open the window and holler,” but that aside it was a letter or a telegram. In those days, we were in the dark about a host of things, often learning something had happened days, or even weeks, after the event. Today, while one can complain that we’re actually on information overload, we do get to know more daily about our world and the people in it than was previously the case.
In recent days, for instance, after some comments in the media from former President Bharrat Jagdeo about the lifestyle of our late leader Cheddi Jagan, we have witnessed a massive outpouring of information and comment in the uproar that followed. It bubbled up and is still bubbling. All the modern communication media
