Dear Editor,
I refer to Mr Abu Bakr’s letter of June 25 in SN (‘It doesn’t matter what the historians say if we continue to hold on to the myth of a single guilty race’), and Mr Kwayana’s of June 26 in SN (‘To rely on PPP sources alone is to give only “one side of a historical narrative of guilt”’).
I recently wrote an article on the issue of an apology by the PNCR, prompted by public comments made by prominent members or former members of that party. Dr David Hinds wrote a response in which he said that it was the PPP that should apologize because it had been responsible since 1956, apparently solely, for generating ethnic tension in Guyana. He cited instances of history. I replied in another article in which I made three main points, namely: (i) that Dr Hinds had ignored the PPP’s offer to the PCD in 1992 for Dr Clive Thomas to be the prime ministerial candidate with Jagan as the presidential candidate; (ii) that Dr Hinds had ignored the PPP’s proposal for a National Patriotic Front and Government in 1978: and, (iii) that Dr Hinds had relied on unknown or obscure facts of little or no significance particularly relating to Mr Eusi Kwayana. I accused Dr Hinds of having a narrative of historical guilt of the PPP which ignores these facts. Maybe he thought that the facts were unimportant or did not contradict his conclusion. But in the absence of any explanation by him of his omissions, I think that I am entitled to make the conclusion that I did in view of the flat contradiction of Dr Hinds’s narrative by the facts he omitted.
Mr Abu Bakr, in his letter, in a patently disingenuous effort, seeks to rescue Dr Hinds and obscure that objective by donning the garb of intellectual neutrality and by changing the argument. His lecture to us on the psychology and narrative of suffering of ethnic groups in divided societies is interesting but irrelevant. It forms the backdrop for his conclusion that: “It is therefore unlikely that agreement as to the existence and interpretation of ‘objective fact’ will be easy.”
The facts – the National Patriotic Front proposals of 1978 and the PPP’s offer to the WPA in 1992 – are not in dispute. They occurred. They are known by Dr Hinds. He lived through them. There is no possibility of disagreement here. The prima facie conclusion in both instances, unless shown to be otherwise, is that the PPP was making efforts to deal with the political/ethnic divisions in Guyana, contrary to Dr Hinds’s criticisms of the PPP and Mr Bakr’s attempt at providing protective cover for Dr Hinds. How can these facts be “irrelevant” as suggested might be the case by Mr Bakr? And how can Mr Bakr conclude, by my insistence that their omission leaves a gap in Dr Hinds’s analysis, that I am party to some kind of “myth” that “Dr Jagan’s hand [was] eternally extended in a gesture of reconciliation and invitation”? History, not myth, or ethnic narrative, will eventually determine Dr Jagan’s gestures. I’m not talking about history. I’m talking about living facts, within the memory of both Dr Hinds and me.
My issue with Dr Hinds had nothing to do with separate ethnic narratives in Guyana. I do not believe that Dr Hinds subscribes to or would perpetuate ethnic narratives. And Mr Bakr makes no such accusation against Dr Hinds. Sadly, however, he freely implies, without evidence, that I am inspired by a PPP/Indian narrative which is “at the root of the conflicting versions of PPP and Guyanese history.” Is Mr Bakr saying that I represent the PPP/Indian version of history and Dr Hinds represents a separate Guyanese version? If so can Mr Bakr tell me if he is saying that the National Patriotic Front proposals and the PPP’s offer to the WPA are figments of my PPP/Indian imagination and mere PPP/Indian versions of history?
My argument with Dr Hinds is not about ethnic narratives, a reality in ethnically divided societies, including our own, but which Mr Bakr unsustainably propounds as a defence of Dr Hinds. It is about Dr Hinds’s narrative of the PPP. In excoriating the PPP, he fails to mention known, salient facts which contradict his thesis. I believe that this is unacceptable for a political scientist and a man of Dr Hinds’s stature.
I should like to thank Mr Kwayana for the historical tidbits, correcting my own representations and adding a few more. Despite my ignorance of some of the facts and mistake about others, I believe my judgment about Mr Kwayana and his motivations are accurate. He is not qualified to be a judge in his own cause.
However, in relation to the exchange between Dr Hinds, Mr Ogunsaye and myself, Mr Kwayana glaringly omits mention of the PPP’s initiatives of 1978 and 1992 under discussion. His letter, therefore, does nothing to resolve my complaint about the failure of Dr Hinds to consider important facts, of which he is aware, in his judgment of the PPP. Mr Kwayana unjustly and unjustifiably accuses me of asking for an apology from only one side of the historical narrative. I did no such thing. My sole and singular complaint was against Dr Hinds’s narrative about the PPP, which is incomplete and flawed because of its incompleteness.
In relation to the PPP generally, Mr Kwayana gives us his usual offerings – starting with sarcasm, spicing up the middle with self denigration and ending in bitterness. They speak for themselves. No response is necessary.
I thank your readers for their patience. They must by now be thoroughly bored with this issue. I undertake to now bring my side of this correspondence to a close.
Yours faithfully,
Ralph Ramkarran
