I do not share the political perspectives on Guyana as espoused by Mr. Christopher Ram, but I recognize that Mr. Ram is a public intellectual who is familiar with what is going on in the world. In fact, whenever we talk, our chat is friendly and respectful.
Two weeks ago, in a conversation, he opined that the world is going in a right-wing direction, which I agree with. I would say that this right-wing direction is extremist and very dangerous. Knowing that Mr. Ram should know his stuff, I was surprised by his description of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as a strong man.

My problem is threefold. Is he a strong man and if he is then who else is a strong man in the countries of the world and who actually classified him as a strong man. Let’s answer the third question first. Western media started this classification for two reasons. One is that Orbán is not a pro-Western leader. He does not align his policies with the holistic agenda of the European Union. He supported the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump and has a friendly relationship with Putin.
What makes Hungary’s popularly elected leader a strong man? Let’s move on to the second question. If Orbán is a strong man, does he deserve that description? The answer is both yes and no. Mr. Orbán does not fit the classic model of a democratic leader as we have in CARICOM. Many of his policies have autocratic dimensions, but this is where revisionist political theory comes into play.
Mr. Orbán is not alone in his autocratic ways. He lives among a sea of ​​powerful people in countries that the Western media refuse to label as the title of this column. In fact, when you make a comparison with what happens in other democratic countries, there are actually fewer human rights violations in Hungary.

Let’s give some examples. Stabroek News columnist Ashma John, who holds German citizenship, wrote the following about Germany: “Over the past year, as democratic as Germany promises to be, we have seen excessive police brutality involving protesters, censorship, raids and total harassment. I’ve heard talk of Nazi-style deportation policies.”
In Germany, it is a crime to say the following words in public: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Is German Chancellor Olaf Scholz a strong man? He is if you’re going to use Orban as a template. Mrs. John wrote about what happened in Germany in the last year. But last year, the situation was more explicit in the US.
There have been police raids and police attacks and arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters. University professors lost their jobs. Students were expelled from their universities. Foreign students in the US were deported. Artists, singers and actors, some of whom are global superstars, have been horribly victimized.

Given what Ms. John described in Germany and what happened in the United States, why didn’t the Western media label their leaders as strongmen? So why describe Orban as such? Turkey’s president-elect, Recep Erdogan, is also portrayed as a strongman in the Western media. There is more presidential autocracy in France than in Turkiye and Hungary. President Macron of France is never mentioned as a strongman by the Western media, but he practices more strongman politics than Orban and Erdogan.
If any leader fits the bill of a strongman, it is France’s Macron, closely followed by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. This lady doesn’t even have a democratic bone in her body and seems to be a person who doesn’t feel comfortable embracing fascist ideological orientations. The powerful woman who rules Italy is never mentioned in the Western media.
I’m sure Mr. Ram knows that Israel’s Netanyahu is never once mentioned by the Western media as a strongman. This is an incredibly cruel man, facing corruption trials in his own country and an imminent warrant for his arrest for war crimes from the International.

Criminal Court. I’m sure Mr. Ram knows that a year after the genocide in Gaza, the Western media refused to allow reporters to use the word “genocide” in their reporting.
In my opinion, the most liberal Western press house was the Guardian of Britain. However, the newspaper fired its cartoonist after 40 years for featuring Netanyahu in his cartoon. This is how far the Western media has gone in politicizing journalism. I am sure Mr. Ram knows better. Orban’s strong-willed remark must have been a slip of the pen.

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 the National Newspapers of Guyana Limited.