LAST Thursday, on the eve of GO-INVEST's three-day exposition of Guyanese commodities at Travelodge Hotel in Toronto, we editorialized the Government's efforts, through GO-INVEST, to attract foreign investments and, at the same time, bridge the gap of distance and time between overseas-based Guyanese and their homeland.
We also talked a little about the practice by some Guyanese to vent their dislike of the Government by not merely criticizing the administration and its policies but also by depicting their own country as the worst place on earth.
Well, President Jagdeo made that very point when he spoke at the launching of the Guyana-Canada Business and Professional Association in Toronto last Friday.
Admittedly, some people are superlatively sensitive. They get all wired up seeing anything and everything in a State-run medium that doesn't "speak" well about the Government. Others, more tolerant, sigh at the sight of an overwhelming spread of sensational news in any periodical, but concede that democracy connotes anything but a "father-knows-best" approach to news dissemination.
Generally, however, antagonists waging a deliberate and sustained campaign of vilification of the Government consciously spread false news and information about their country, believing that a fading away of foreign investments, business downsizing, economic stagnation, socio-cultural disintegration and political instability will lead ultimately to governmental collapse and the return of the opposition to the corridors of executive power.
That's just what the President was talking about when he addressed participants at the launch of Guyana-Canada Business and Professional Association.
"I hope that this association will help to spread the truth about Guyana. We do not want you to be a propaganda organization because there are too many of those already. As professionals and business people who will be part of the association (I hope you) will not take things at face value, but try to get to the truth," he told a gathering of about 300 persons at the Toronto ceremony.
It was a timely discourse. As an article on the association's launching (see page 8) discloses, more than 200,000 Guyanese study, work and live in Canada. More than 2,500 of them are professionals and self-employed. And they own more than 1,000 businesses in that North American country, which, geographically, is the second largest country in the world after Russia.
Very many of these Guyanese, cut off from access to up-to-date information on Guyana, may be inclined to believe the first piece of information they hear, read or see. Hence the President's caution: ask questions or come take a first-hand look to get to the truth.
No one reasonably expects an opposition politician or news medium to say anything positive about the Government. And some officials may determine that most of what critics say, "scale the heights of absurdist fantasy."
Still, it's not possible for every overseas-based Guyanese who get this negative interpretation of Guyana to travel home for a first-hand look at what really is happening here.
So, in addition to the Guyana-Canada Business and Professional Association striving to attract foreign direct investments in Guyana and/or engage in joint-ventures involving Guyanese and Canadians, the consulate in Toronto may need to intensify its operations by reaching out to and keeping most, if not all, of the 200,000-plus Guyanese residing in Canada abreast of developments in their homeland.
We believe this is an essential component of the task of promoting Guyana abroad.