-parts ways with organisers
Buxtonian and WPA Executive Dr. David Hinds has labelled President Bharrat Jagdeo’s visit to Buxton a “political charade” even as he lamented the “accommodationist attitude being promoted by some African Guyanese leaders”.
Jagdeo visited the East Coast Demerara community on Wednesday for the first time in his Presidency. In a statement yesterday, Hinds warned that Buxtonians have not learned from their mistakes. He pointed out that when some Buxtonians welcomed the “gunmen” in 2002, they did not know they were opening the floodgates to mayhem in and from their village. “Eight years later the village is in tatters and the facilitators of the gunmen are nowhere to be seen. Now we are welcoming a new set of saviours”, said Hinds. “I predict the outcome will be of a different cloth but the same smell”, he continued.
He said while he is not opposed to villages accessing government funding, they must not ignore the political context when relating to the government. “Despite the President’s plea that he was not looking for votes, it is an open secret that the government is desperate to show it has the support of African Guyanese. It is one of the tactics to continue the resistance to share power with African Guyanese representatives. It is one of the tactics to secure a third term for President Jagdeo – he will argue he is the only PPP leader who can win African Guyanese votes”, Hinds argued.
Hinds said that he does not control anybody in Buxton or claim leadership status, but given his history of activism in the village and nationally, some Buxtonians look to him for political example. The community gave him his first breath and nurtured his sense of duty and pride, he said. “So I owe it the staunchest defense in the face of the recent political charade that is presented as “outreach,” “healing,” “change” and ‘reaching out’,” Hinds said. “Everyone has a right to choose their political friends and allies but to do so in the name of a community without its approval is an unforgivable act that deserves the strongest and widest condemnation”, he said.
The political activist said that he respects the right of the President to invite any group of citizens to a reception in the name of the state and to visit any community. He said he also supports the right of all citizens to share the national resources, including funds to aid development. Accessing government resources is a fundamental right and not a privilege, Hinds pointed out. “Hence the President and government should not behave as if they are doing citizens a favour when they commit these resources to the communities. And citizens and communities don’t have to beg and curry-favour to get those resources”, he said.
Hinds said it is his view that over the last 18 years, African Guyanese have been systematically stripped of their dignity both from without and within “to the point where we are almost soul-less and powerless in Guyana”. According to him, “we have become mercenaries and beggars. We have all but surrendered our right to resist and claim our share of the national cake. If we do not stop this rot now, there will be no free tomorrow for our children”. He said that African-Guyanese have to have what David Granger calls a “second emancipation.” This has to start by regaining their pride and dignity, he said.
“It is with this in mind that I take a dim view of the growing accommodationist attitude being promoted by some African Guyanese leaders and encouraged by the government and the ruling party. The latter senses our vulnerability and is intent on exploiting it. We are willingly presenting ourselves to be conquered in the name of cooperation. But there are fundamental differences between reaching out and groveling, between requesting what is yours and begging. Ultimately a people and its culture will survive and overcome by the quality of their dignity and by standing erect even in the face of perils. This is one of the truest tests of dignity. If you compromise your dignity you have little left of yourself to pass on to the next generation”, Hinds argued.
In recounting the events leading up to the celebrations of the anniversaries of the abolition of slavery and the purchasing of Buxton, Hinds said while he was not a member of either of the two communitties, he supported both groups though he identified more with the one headed by Mboya Wood and Lorna Campbell in New York and Dr. Barbara Thomas-Holder in Buxton.
He recalled that he was asked to give the keynote address at the opening ceremony on July 24 and to moderate a symposium a few days later. At the symposium, he said, he called on the organizers to turn down an invitation by the president to a reception at State House as he was certain that it was a political trap. “I felt and still feel that we should steer clear of partisan political involvement and should not offer comfort to any political side. For this I was roundly criticized by a leading member of the committee who viewed my call as unhelpful to the cause of development in Buxton and suggested that since I live overseas I did not have to face the realities of living with the present government”, he said.
He recalled that at an education forum held, plans to immediately tackle the violence in the schools, hunger and illiteracy were discussed and an outreach to parents was planned. He noted that the forum heard “gruesome tales of violence, hunger, poverty, illiteracy – the consequence of six years of the worst kind of terror. I was moved to point out that Buxton is in a post-war situation and that we should declare a state of emergency”. It was agreed that a meeting should be held with the wider community to report and get more input and that a press conference should be called to report to the nation, he said. To date neither has been held, Hinds said. Instead, he said, the President and some ministers descended on Buxton on Wednesday and Jagdeo declared that government would fund the initiatives discussed at the education forum. “None of these initiatives (has) been discussed with villagers as we agreed, but the President has pronounced on them as if they were government initiatives”, said Hinds. “I am opposed to the President going to communities bearing gifts and the communities groveling at his feet”, he said adding that, this to his mind, is what has happened in Buxton.
“What started out as a noble effort to reclaim the dignity of Buxton has ended up as an obscene political maneuver in which some leaders have mindlessly and perhaps innocently delivered the village to the political overlords. Perhaps Dr. Thomas-Holder is right in describing the President’s presence as historic – it is the first time that Buxton has been presented on a platter to be used as political props in a clear political game. That never happened under the PNC government to which Buxtonians had more ethno-political affinity”, he said.
“Although I fault the President for agreeing to this scheme—something that Mr. Burnham or Mr. Hoyte never did to Buxton— it is the Buxtonians who used our commemoration as a platform to get in bed with the government that I am most disappointed at. My words must be harsh as the enormity of your transgression must be highlighted. It is an act of betrayal to surrender your people in an election year to the clutches of a party and government that have destroyed the democratic and multiracial hope of 1992 which your village was instrumental in bringing to fruition… You have become the model not of a new emancipation but of a new accomodationism. You are teaching Buxtonions and Africans to be mindless beggars and weaklings”, Hinds said.
He said he spent his early youth actively opposing the deliverance of Buxton to Congress Place (PNC), had spoken out against delivering the village to the gunmen of the recent past and now he opposes delivering it to Freedom House. “Governments must govern fairly and communities must defend their right to self-determination. History will never be kind to those of you who slavishly delivered our ancestral house, however shaky it is, to be used as political prop”, he said.
Hinds, said that given the situation, he cannot continue his association with the group in Buxton. “To them I say, as my colleague, Andaiye, famously said eight years ago— Not in my name. And I warn Buxtonians to stay away from this game, it is unhealthy”, he said.