Dear Editor,
With reference to Freddie Kissoon’s column, ‘Is there an elected dictatorship in Guyana?’ KN, 29.4.08, Mr Kissoon employs the work of Friedrich, Machiavelli and Gramsci to suggest that there is an “elected dictatorship” in Guyana.
While I again applaud Kissoon’s attempt to draw on political theory in the analysis of Guyana’s state-society relations, I am disappointed that Mr Kissoon has done so improperly.
Here are Kissoon’s formulations –
(1) Guyana has an elected dictatorship on account of the PPP control of the state and society.
(2) “Control takes many shapes. I say that there are two types of control present in autocratic rulership – Machiavellian and Gramscian.”
(3) “There are situations… like Guyana, where the regime obtains the same level of success in controlling the society but it is done through non-coercive hegemony as beautifully adumbrated by the genius of Antonio Gramsci.”
(4) “Through a process of cultural and ethnic division, the PPP Government has achieved the same amount of compliance and domination over society as when Burnham ruled it.”
Let us examine these positions. The first thing to do in this process is to look at Gramsci.
The noted Gramscian scholar, Joseph Femia, characterizes hegemony as follows: “…within a stable social order, there must be a substratum of agreement so powerful that it can counteract the division of disruptive forces arising from conflicting interests.” (Femia, 1981).
Femia also highlights the fact, that for Gramsci, hegemony is not a solipsistic concept, but one that must be specified in terms of historical tendencies, and in terms of levels of institutionalization. Accordingly, for Gramsci, there are three different moments of hegemonic practice, namely, the integral, the decadent, and the minimal.
The situation of decadent hegemony is a sort of Weberian ideal type, meaning that it is a conceptual abstraction. Integral hegemony means complete domination of society. It almost never exists.
Decadent hegemony refers to a fractured society, but one where there is sufficient political and cultural acceptance, such that, challenges to the social order can be subsumed within a paradigmatic discourse.
Minimal hegemony refers to a situation where, in fact, the legitimacy of central institutions of the state and society are actually contested. In this case, organic intellectuals of ‘resistance,’ combined with sectors of the disaffected masses refuse to accept the extant political, economic, and cultural leadership.
Now, let us see how any of the above might apply to Guyana.
Integral hegemony can be quickly dispensed with since, apart from being a conceptual abstraction, in point of fact, the PPP has not come close to articulating any kind of grand narrative.
Decadent hegemony seems more plausible, but I argue here that the PNC under Mr Burnham came closer to this than the PPP. Why? Burnham’s Cooperative Socialism was in fact a sort of grand narrative. It was indeed capable of drawing in wide sections of the society into a national project of development. This was a sort of socialist developmentalism, combined with Third World nationalism. The PNC leadership did, in fact, manage to draw in propertied elements from the society, irrespective of racio-ethnic identities. Put simply, many Indians were supporters of Mr Burnham. That said, the rigging of elections indicated that Mr Burnham was not successful in his leadership.
What about minimal hegemony? Kissoon might find this the most useful iteration of hegemonic practice for his purposes. The problem though, is that this goes against his central claims of domination. Minimal hegemony actually points to the refusal of some sectors of the population to accept the extant political leadership. Proof of this can be found every day in the newspapers and television programmes in Guyana.
The refusal of some sectors of the population to participate productively in the society is palpable in the case of Guyana. There are well known organic intellectuals who actually see productive participation as betrayal. For instance, many White Collar Insurgents (a term I developed to designate those who support violent destabilization) call Africans who are engaged in the society “house slaves.” Others praise the work of those who carry out violent attacks. And still others simply refuse to accept a government that was in fact voted in by the people.
The central articulating principle of this refusal to participate is ‘marginalization.’ Recent writers who champion non-participation in the society have even suggested that marginalization need not be objective. It is just a sign.
What does this project of aggravated non-participation mean? If we indeed use the work of Gramsci, the answer is simple, namely, the refusal to accept the current ‘leadership.’ And again, within the ambit of Gramscian political theory – where there is a refusal to accept leadership, there can be no hegemony.
I would like to suggest to Mr Kissoon that the problem of the PPP is not one of hegemony. It simply does not exist. A society that is hegemonized is not dogged by ‘slow fiah, mo fiah.’ In such a society, the extant leadership must struggle for its survival.
Yours faithfully,
Dr Randy Persaud
