Alexander defends digital activism amid controversy

Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der is de­fend­ing his use of so­cial me­dia as a tool for po­lit­i­cal en­gage­ment, which he char­ac­terised as a form of “ac­tivism” that helped se­cure the Gov­ern­ment’s cur­rent man­date.

Alexan­der faced scruti­ny af­ter a week­end live broad­cast in which he re­port­ed­ly made dis­parag­ing ac­cu­sa­tions against for­mer politi­cians and fig­ures as­so­ci­at­ed with pri­vate or­gan­i­sa­tions.

He has since dis­missed the back­lash, con­tend­ing that the con­tro­ver­sial seg­ments were the re­sult of short clips be­ing “edit­ed and shared” out of con­text.

“The part of it that up­set me that I watched, that I saw, they edit­ed, spliced and dubbed my voice, and that is wrong. Be­cause I don’t hold wa­ter in my mouth to say things. So, if you want me to say some­thing, don’t put it in my mouth for me. Let me say it,” he added.

Cit­ing the po­ten­tial for le­gal ac­tion, the Sen­a­tor de­clined to pro­vide fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion or ex­pand on the spe­cif­ic na­ture of the ac­cu­sa­tions made dur­ing the live stream.

De­spite the crit­i­cism, Alexan­der main­tained that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has not rep­ri­mand­ed him for his pub­lic re­marks.

“Not in any way. She said if they come for your eye, take their head”.

He al­so clar­i­fied that the de­ci­sion to re­move the broad­cast from so­cial me­dia was based on the ad­vice of his at­tor­neys, who cau­tioned that the con­tent could in­ter­fere with po­ten­tial le­gal pro­ceed­ings he is con­sid­er­ing against a for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter.

More­over, Alexan­der ar­gued that his dig­i­tal pres­ence has shift­ed the land­scape for gov­ern­ment sup­port­ers.

“I know I’ve made this Gov­ern­ment strong. I know their sup­port­ers now are not be­ing bul­lied on so­cial me­dia any­more. Be­cause they know they have peo­ple, the likes of me. But I want to say this, and I want to say it clear­ly, there has to be a shift from an ac­tivist to a mem­ber of gov­ern­ment. I get that. And it is a learn­ing curve, and I am do­ing my best.”

He al­so posits that his po­lit­i­cal style has en­cour­aged of­fi­cials to be more as­sertive in the pub­lic do­main.

“I hear Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter, speak some­times, and I feel proud. I hear my words come out of Bar­ry Padarath’s mouth. I know that I’ve em­pow­ered and helped and en­cour­aged,” Alexan­der stat­ed.

In a news­pa­per ar­ti­cle re­flect­ing on the first an­niver­sary of her ad­min­is­tra­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar her­self sig­nalled a de­par­ture from tra­di­tion­al diplo­mat­ic re­straint.

Warn­ing her de­trac­tors of the po­ten­tial con­se­quences of po­lit­i­cal con­fronta­tion, she stat­ed: “If you come for my eye, I will take your whole head.”—Da­reece Po­lo