EVER SINCE “blogs” reached Barbados about five years ago – the word is a contraction of “Web” and “log” – their greatest ambition has been that someone in the mainstream media would notice them.
Two weeks ago my picture suddenly popped up alongside Peter Wickham’s over a sneering polemic titled Social Media And Protecting The Right To Freedom Of Expression By Ordinary People. The writer was dispensing his self-patented brand of oracular commandments on how Barbados ought to be. To his credit, William Skinner signed his name.
Attached to that “post”, the blogmaster once again accurately suggested that Wickham and I were “critical” of the blogs.
It made me return to my beef with the blogs. All I’ve been asking these almost 40 years – decades before blogging – is that people muster the guts to stand up and identify with the views they express.
I wrote: “You need not be anonymous to make your point. Except for the all too rare instances of whistle-blowing and the all too few imagined instances of victimization, there is no reason not to stand up like a woman or a man and say to Carl Moore or Freundel Stuart or Barack Obama: ‘I David (surname) disagree with you; and here is why.’”
Then, all hell broke loose. They cussed me for two days straight.
One sniper, AC, who some guess is a woman (most bloggers are men), wrote: “People like Carl Moore are attention-grabbers, publicity-seekers and media hogs. They are in media heaven when they are being recognized and name recognition gives them a certain air of importance with an added feeling of accomplishment, not because of anything important like finding the cure for cancer or HIV. This urge to be recognized gives people of his kind an orgasmic feeling because people know who they are.”
BAFBFP intoned: “I have a serious problem with this Carl Moore fella, too. These people that assign themselves champions of one cause or another and seem to attract a lotta attention from the media houses. He reminds me of Stan Reid (the late) but with a different cause to his name . . . .”
Pachamama relieved himself of this morsel of gobbledygook: “He is one of these BBC puppets. Now you want to demand that our identities are to be known. You will never know who we are until the revolution we seek is ready to free ourselves from the colonial hegemony that people like Moore perpetuate in Barbados.”
Anonymity must be a mental dungeon; a cage where you’re confined like a tiger. I suspect I’m wrong, though, judging by the many who seem comfortable to exist in such stifling confinement.
They want to have their conkie and eat it too. There are times when anonymity is vital but the local blogs have provided a briar patch for the mischievous.
I will never forget what they did, applying Photoshop to the faces of three Barbadian politicians. The same technology that protects these faceless invertebrates will one day expose them to public scrutiny. As financier Warren Buffett said: “When the tide goes out you discover who’s been swimming naked.”
Blogging has done little to advance the democratic process in Barbados. Rather, it has provided safe haven for an assortment of Jekylls and Hydes. Like rooftop snipers, with silly names like Old Onion Bags, Green Monkey, Georgie Porgie, Just Asking, Observing, Amused, Millertheannunaki, Bush Tea and Peltdownman, they pick off people from the safety of their anonymity, mistaking a free-for-all for freedom.
No one told them that freedom without responsibility is anarchy.
Just as I was signing off and promising to develop today’s column out of that exchange, the blogmaster begged: “Be sure to mention the name Barbados Underground.”
Well, there you are, David; I’ve made your day; you’ve finally arrived. At last, your name has appeared in a local newspaper.
As you read this, they’re showering me with Christmas blessings. Anonymously, of course.
Merry Christmas!
• Carl Moore was the first Editor of THE NATION and is a social commentator. Email carlmoore@caribsurf.com
