Mr. Bisram’s glass house

Mr Vishu Bisram yesterday (Sunday) had a letter published praising an editorial in Saturday’s Stabroek News (SN). This means that Mr. Bisram’s letter was published the day after it was sent. Normally, due to the volume of letters they receive, newspapers rarely publish a letter the day after it is sent.

I guess SN felt the need to publicize the eulogy Mr. Bisram poured out on the newspaper, hence the priority printing. When a newspaper can attach so much importance to what Mr. Bisram says about it, I guess it needs publicity.
Mr Bisram was responding to Saturday’s editorial in which Saturday Man castigated the government for what Saturday Man called the government’s tendency to victimize people who speak out. I will confront this SN editorial in another column (perhaps Tuesday) but for now, I will focus on other contents of Mr. Bisram’s letter which are totally absurd.

But before that, readers may find Bisram’s opening interesting. Here’s what he said about the editorial: “Thank you for a brilliantly written editorial. » Can Saturday Man write brilliant editorials? Or is it that Bisram cannot distinguish between brilliance and mediocrity. He should do so because Bisram said he has 6 master’s degrees and 6 doctorates. I wrote in one of my daily columns a few weeks ago that I don’t think any other human being on planet Earth is as educated.

For the rest of my argument, I will stick to two aspects of Bisram’s production yesterday. He wrote: “Leaders of civil society organizations should not fear. They must continue to speak out on the issues…” Mr. Bisram himself has benefited from a society where people barely speak out. If people were willing to speak out then SN and Mr Bisram would have been subject to pyrotechnic confrontations over very misleading things they write and I am being moderate in using the term ‘misleading’.

If Guyanese society had focused on Mr. Bisram long ago, then perhaps Mr. Bisram should have explained his secret, mysterious or invisible polling company named NACTA. For 30 years, Mr. Bisram has published the results of the frequent polls he conducts in Guyana. But to this day, no one knows who the local officials with whom Mr. Bisram works are. There is absolutely no one in Guyana who has been identified as being involved in the work of NACTA.

I have written a huge amount of material on this subject over the last 20 years as a columnist in all the newspapers here in Guyana and in these two decades Mr. Bisram has not published even ‘one line about NACTA and who works with it. in Guyana and where the site(s) of its activity in Guyana are located. It is worth noting that the Guyanese media has, over the last 15 years (yes, 15 years), stopped using Mr. Bisram’s poll results as news. Mr. Bisram informs the nation of what he finds in his investigations by sending letters to newspapers. This can easily be verified by a Google search.

Mr. Bisram cannot be so naive as not to know that his frequent attacks on the Guyanese government will result in responses from the government’s intellectual defenders and that he will have to answer questions about his polls. This has already started with the former high commissioner to Canada, Harry Nawbatt. I am absolutely sure that Mr. Bisram knows the old saying that “people who live in a greenhouse should not throw stones”.

I move on to the second aspect of Mr. Bisram’s letter which deeply bothered me. I quote: “A true democracy guarantees the right to express oneself freely without fear of reprisal. In the United States, one can speak freely about any matter relating to the government or a politician. There is unlikely to be any retaliation. The US Constitution and the Court protect (sic) free speech, including the right to criticize the government and your employer. »

This is the second time in two months that Mr. Bisram has repeated this controversial perception and it is the second time that I have responded to him. In my first rebuttal, I highlighted the mass police arrests and prosecutions of people speaking out against the Israeli genocide. Hundreds of people have been arrested and hundreds of students have been expelled from their respective universities for speaking out against this situation. Dozens of foreign students have been expelled from the United States for speaking out against Israel.

Space would not permit further discussion, but I close by informing Bisram, who has 6 master’s degrees and 6 doctorates, that I believe the United States Supreme Court is no better than the Court of Justice of the Caribbean.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Guyana National Newspapers Limited.