Dear Editor,
Tacuma Ogunseye in his letter captioned “Minister Rohee seems to be losing control” (08.03.14) set out to discredit me in the eyes of the readership of your newspaper.
From time immemorial, it has been the practice worldwide for opposition elements of all sorts to hurl insults, innuendoes, and abuse at persons serving in government. I had my days in such ventures while the PPP was in the opposition. It is the nature of politics.
Tacuma Ogunseye had his days too when the PNC was in the government. And he continues to do so to this day since the PPP/C assumed office.
But here’s the difference, my role has changed, his has not.
Some persons serving in government make the mistake of expecting bouquets rather than spears and daggers from the opposition. They somehow feel that by cultivating a cosy relationship with elements in the opposition they will be spared the severity of public criticism. If they have not learnt their lesson as yet, they will some time in the future.
My own view is: when your enemy praises you watch yourself! When your enemy denounces you, watch him even closer!
Any sensible politician serving in government cannot be against cultivating relationships with opposition elements particularly when the bona fides and the locus standi of the organisation to which they belong have been well established.
However, such relationships must not be opportunistic and self-serving; on the contrary, they must be based on principle, respect for each other’s political views, ideological and philosophical convictions. Tacuma Ogunseye was never comfortable working within such a framework.
The one-time social and political activist now prolific letter writer is a curious fellow. He has persistently followed a path characterized by Black cultural nationalism and political extremism. These are the hallmarks of his search for a political destiny. This was exemplified by his public association with ASCRIA, the WPA and now ACDA. As for his activism in today’s context, there may be more in the mortar than the pestle.
Black cultural nationalism and political extremism can be a dangerous brew especially in a democracy especially where certain racial and ethnic peculiarities exist.
This combustible combination ignores objective reality and seeks to impose its own metaphysical and prejudicial views on society by appealing to race and ethnic insecurity. Small wonder why utterances about “marginalisation” “racial discrimination”, Black “liberation and resistance”, can be heard from time to time emanating from certain quarters.
We had a similar experience in the early 1970s in Guyana when certain East Indian racist and religious elements in an effort to capitalise, on a prevailing view at the time, that Indians were being “marginalised and discriminated against” morphed into political extremism resulting in a call to Indians to pick up guns to remove the PNC from Office.
Do I get a sense of deja vu?
The PPP opposed armed insurrection as a means to remove the PNC. It took the path of civil resistance and non-cooperation.
Political movements with this twin characteristic and objective usually have a public and a subterranean organisational structure.
Recall, for example, the WPA in the late 1970s of which Tacuma Ogunseye was part. That organisation was oriented towards spectacular type activities and heroic symbolic acts, but that movement also had a subterranean side, in which Walter Rodney himself was involved, and which resulted in his demise.
Further, taking into consideration national and international experiences with movements such as the Black Panther Movement and other similar US-based organisations in which Black American radicals such as Huey P Newton, Eldrige Cleaver, Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael were involved, it is interesting to note that such movements do not acknowledge a law-governed process of social and historical development. As a consequence, they eventually wither away.
The German philosopher Hegel once said, “Practice is the criterion of truth”.
Those who support these movements fail to recognise that while certain steps may be intermediate and certain advances may require compromise (note for example, the decision at the meeting with stakeholders to establish a Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on National Security), they nevertheless represent real change (note Dr Luncheon’s statement that “things will never be the same again”) and set the stage for advancement to a higher level of governance and democracy.
By rejecting these important developments the Ogunseyes of this world also reject the social, political and economic gains already won by the Guyanese people. By their very statements, these gains are seen as non-beneficial to all but a few and that marginalisation of Blacks will continue to be an inherent and permanent feature of Guyanese society so long as the PPP/C (read Indian rule) remains in office.
Another characteristic of the organisations Mr Ogunseye adores is hostility to the working class and the labour movement. This rejection manifests itself in the lack of focus in any way on the working class. That is why it is not unusual to discern from their utterances that the working class is nothing else but of nuisance value and unhelpful to their “cause”!!
Consequently, as far as they are concerned the real force with the potential to advance that “cause” is the unemployed and marginally unemployed Black youths in depressed communities who are indoctrinated and made to believe that prolonged PPP/C rule is unacceptable and must be brought to an end by whatever means except through the ballot box.
As the indoctrination goes only this will bring an end to “marginalisation and racial discrimination of Blacks” in Guyana.
Several persons have spoken and written countering the myth about marginalisation and racial discrimination of Blacks in Guyana. And they have effectively debunked this erroneous view, having critically examined the claim at various levels of society and through the prism of the state and government institutions in Guyana.
Incidentally, in the 1970s and 1980s under Burnham and later Hoyte’s rule it was generally recognised that the PNC was responsible for Afro-Guyanese finding themselves at the lowest rung of the social ladder to the extent that much dissatisfaction had developed in the bauxite industry and the trade union movement.
However, to the “Black modernists” for the PNC (read Black rule) to oppress and suppress its “kith and kin” was unthinkable, it just did not happen even though Walter Rodney with Ogunseye at his side found this to be true and used it effectively to mobilise popular support for his cause.
Thus to Ogunseye and other proponents of this view only the PPP can make this possible. Such political misbehaviour is obviously racial and devoid of a class approach.
If this were to be true, then those who hold to this view should explain why and how Blacks are oppressing and suppressing Blacks in Darfur in the Sudan, in Zimbabwe, in Kenya, in Uganda under Idi Amin, and in Liberia under Charles Taylor just to mention a few.
It should surprise no one to see the same Tacuma Ogunseye who once stood at Walter Rodney’s side ridiculing Burnham as “King Kong” and chanting “People’s Power No Dictator!” now solidly in the camp of those he once bitterly opposed. After all, from a historical standpoint this is how and from whence it all began.
Ogunseye symbolically represents the return to the fold of those prodigal sons and daughters who preceded him.
Ogunseye’s attempt to discredit me and by extension, the party and government I serve is all but part of a grand design to which many others contribute. And unabashedly, he makes every effort to portray himself and his ilk as if they know it all – problems and solutions et al. I don’t.
He goes on to pretend that his views, as well as those who hold similar convictions about marginalisation of and racial discrimination against Blacks in Guyana, will prevail and will eventually win the day.
The question is, how? Without entering into the realm of speculation, it is clear that certain signposts are already emerging. They point to a direction that is fraught with many pitfalls.
Experience has shown that Ogunseye’s preferred road to political power can lead nowhere other than increasing isolation and disconnection from people and their representative bodies.
The forward-looking positions adopted by many residents as well as several faith-based and social organisations in Buxton and elsewhere are a microcosm of what obtains at the national level.
Ogunseye’s approach in rejecting compromise and realpolitik as reflected in the day-to-day struggle for a better Guyana for all Guyanese only serves to leave the political arena open to the worst elements in our midst, including those who support the criminal enterprise, and the enterprise itself to perpetrate terrorist acts and criminal activities under the guise of a so-called “just cause”.
It is the task of the forces who stand for peace, democracy and national unity to exert every effort to occupy that space and, over time, to win the hearts and minds of those who are yet to be convinced that there is a role and place for them in the wider space.
Now is not the time to destroy to build, nor to build to destroy, now is the time to build and build for the future generation.
Yours faithfully,
Clement J. Rohee
