“Studying history . . . helps [us] to develop a sense of ‘shared humanity’; to understand themselves and ‘otherness,’ by learning how they resemble and how they differ from other people, over time and space; to question stereotypes of others, and of themselves; to discern the difference between fact and conjecture; to grasp the complexity of historical cause; to distrust the simple answer and the dismissive explanation; to respect particularity and avoid false analogy; to recognize the abuse of historical ‘lessons,’ and to weigh the possible consequences of such abuse; to consider that ignorance of the past may make us prisoners of it; to realize that not all problems have solutions; to be prepared for the irrational, the accidental, in human affairs; and to grasp the power of ideas and character in history.” (The Bradley Commission on History in Schools established in 1987 given the expressed concerns about the quantity and quality of the history teaching in American schools.)
History comes in various types: social, economical, political, diplomatic, intellectual, cultural, etc. but our concern here is with Guyanese political history which, at the very least, should attempt to give us some sense of our shared humanity and an understanding of the influences that have made us what we are and some idea of what we could become.
However, the nature and place of history in the general scheme of things remain controversial. For example, the British Secretary for education, Michael Gove, at the Tory Party Conference in October 2010, claimed that British “Children are growing up ignorant of one of the most inspiring stories I know – the history of our United Kingdom. Our history has moments of pride, and shame, but unless we fully understand the struggles of the past we will not properly value the liberties of the present. The current approach we have to history denies children the opportunity to hear our island story.” The view of Gove has come in for some severe trashing which points to some issues not unrelated to the situation in Guyana.
Tom Devine, professor of history at the University of Edinburgh, said of Gove, who was raised in Scotland: “I find it remarkable someone educated in the Scottish system can come up with this nonsense.” According to him Gove’s position smacks of chauvinism: one cannot select and present aspects of the past that one finds pleasing. The South African “right wing” historian RW Johnson warned against the follies of a celebratory, nationalist syllabus. In South Africa history teaching before 1994 sought to bolster Afrikaner nationalism with black South Africans being merely the objects of history. “Now, under the ANC, that has completely reversed. The years 1652-1994 are simply called ‘the oppression’ and everything about that period is lost.” What these comments suggest is that we need to take a long view of history.
The recent quarrel emanating from President Jagdeo’s presentation at the Impress Youth Conference indicates that the scenarios above are most relevant to Guyana. Indeed, because of our ethnic divisions and resultant traumatic historical development, it is my contention that there is no generally acceptable political history of Guyana: there are political histories based on the various communal perspectives. The concern here is not simply about the inclusion/exclusion of ‘facts” but also about their construction into a social reality. The various communities see the world in different ways and the present PPP/C’s efforts to convince Afro-Guyanese to see the world as Indo-Guyanese do, like the previous PNC’s effort to do the opposite, will fail.
Historically and still today, Afro-Guyanese view the PPP as a racist political party which, when in government implements essentially racist policies. We had an insight into that perspective in the presentations of Carl Greenidge. “As mentioned, a significant proportion of the debt in question was accumulated by the PPP/C governments under Dr Jagan between 1957 and 1964. The money obtained by the PPP was spent on secondary and primary schools, mostly in PPP areas. The debates of the time attest to this behaviour which legitimately angered the bulk of African voters. The other loans were for sea defences, Atkinson Field and the Black Bush Polder Drainage and Irrigation Project (BBP), where 90% of the beneficiaries were Indian supporters.” The present case between the President and Kaieteur News indicates quite clearly that not only has this view not diminished, it may well have strengthened.
Similarly, and as I have stated elsewhere, the Indo-Guyanese account of our political history is almost diametrically opposed to that of Afro-Guyanese. In a nutshell, it holds that our democracy was thwarted in early 1960s when international capital joined with local forces led by the wicked Forbes Burnham, to overthrow the virtuous Dr Cheddi Jagan and to put in government a nefarious racist, dictatorial PNC regime, which destroyed Guyana. Like its predecessor of the 1950s,’ since 1992 the PPP/C has saved Guyana by introducing democracy and development. Thus, President Jagdeo “urged them (the youths) to learn about what the country was like before the PPP/C assumed office in 1992, …. He reminded of a time when citizens were arrested for having certain food items, like bread, or for speaking out against the government….. “We have freedom today in this country no one gets locked up for criticising the government, newspapers could freely publish, you have real freedom, people do not have to belong to a political party to get a job.”
When the President tells the youth to become more acquainted with history he may be doing the worst possible thing simply because he believes in an objective history that accords with his view. He does not understand that his position is socially constructed within the context of his own community. If, as is most likely to happen, his exhortations lead to each community becoming more acquainted with its own history, our present divisive context will be reinforced: not changed. Since it is highly unlikely that any one community will be able to force its views on the other, the challenge is how can we develop the kind of historical perspective, which though being perennially contested, can in general terms, be thought of as representing a true national historical description. I suspect that this will not be possible until our society is managed in a fashion which allows us to take a long and dispassionate view of our history and facilitates our giving less and sometime more weight to what we “know.”
