Dear Editor,
It is the most common of management tactics, perhaps perfected by Louis XI, to maintain subservience among subjects: divide and conquer. For much of Guyana‘s post-independence period, we have been beset by perennial ethnic conflict. It could be argued that it is a result of a system bequeathed us by our former British colonialists. Indeed, it is well known that the British found it most convenient to foster mistrust among factions of the populace under their purview as a means of stifling dissent among restless subjects in their former colonies.
However, why and how this status quo survives four and a half decades after political liberation from colonial powers is a subject that warrants focus particularly in the light of the current campaign season, one which has been characterized by excessive (even by our standards) rancour and the usual undertones.
Undoubtedly, many political commentators would have weighed in on Guyana‘s conflict of diversity. Recently, however, I was introduced to economist Prof David Hirshleifer‘s interpretation and analysis of conflict. As with all economists, he made use of a model. Dr Thomas Singh, a lecturer of economics and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Develop-ment Studies of the University of Guyana, applied this model to the Guyana context and, in the process, succinctly demonstrated how this situation has been allowed to fester and even be perpetuated.
In his paper ‘Poverty, Economics and Conflict Management‘ Dr Singh acknowledged that though politics and ethnicity are real sources of conflict in Guyana, the country‘s state of generalized poverty and deliberate actions on the part of a heavily centralized government, are, perhaps, even greater factors fuelling the disunity.
The lack of a vibrant private sector and private sector-led initiative has led to an overreliance on the state for the provision of resources and opportunities. At this point, it is useful to note that government expenditure constitutes a hefty sixty-five per cent of our country‘s Gross Domestic Product.
Successive post-independence governments have exploited this overreliance and have strategically used the provision of public goods in such a way as to manipulate the electorate. Notes Dr Singh “In poor countries, local public goods are natural candidates for use by the central government to manipulate the electorate because the poor depend heavily on publicly provided goods and services for their survival, and this creates the potential for conflict.“
By allocating resources to those constituents and constituencies that are politically sympathetic, the administration cultivates their loyalty. By excluding non-sympathetic factions from the provision of these opportunities, or offering them marginally (or as tokens), animosity is inevitably engendered among these factions. It is for this reason that the factions do not perceive cooperation to be a viable avenue for the economic advancement of themselves as respective factions and hence, each faction craves dominance of the political system.
It is the convergence of malevolent preferences (born of the animosity among the factions), nepotistic provision of public goods and opportunities (denoted by a convex opportunity set) and a favourable perception of conflict as being more profitable than cooperation, which reduces the scope for peaceful cooperation.
To properly illustrate this model in the Guyana context, examples from the two most distinct political eras in our post-independence history will be used. Starting with the more current of the two, we have the situation whereby public contracts are routinely granted to only a select few companies, top level governmental posts are granted on the basis of ‘connections‘ and massive infrastructural works occur in districts historically known as bastions of political support for the incumbent. The correlation between political support and prospects for material gain, while intuitively understood by most of the citizenry, was succinctly and conclusively brought to the fore during the recent court hearings in the Freddie Kissoon-Bharrat Jagdeo legal showdown. There is well documented evidence of similar occurrences during the PNC administration, with their extension of state benefits to their core bloc of supporters.
A bitterly ethnic flavor is added when it is noted that the beneficiaries of state largesse are not only similar in terms of their political allegiance but, as well as, in terms of their ethnic identity. Dr Singh summarizes it best when he writes: “Indeed, a basic feature of ethnically divided societies is coincidence of political affiliation (ie, the action) to a particular political party and race or ethnicity (ie, the characteristic). An extreme danger is that the marginalised jurisdictions might infer that what is being rewarded/penalised is the characteristic of race or ethnicity, and that the central government is racist in its budgetary policies.“
Given the digression above, it is now easy to understand why politics has such a distinctively racial undertone and why each faction treats it as an ultra-high stakes battle for its economic survival.
Exacerbating the economic causes of racial conflict are the visceral rhetoric and rancour with which politicians operate. This further polarizes the populace and deepens division. One wonders why politicians, over the forty-five years of us being a sovereign nation, have, for the most part, done little or nothing to promote healing across the divides. The answer is simple: it is politically convenient for them to do so. It helps when factions of the electorate are too occupied sniping at each other to make the collective realization that grave mismanagement is occurring.
It is incumbent upon us citizens that we throw off our straitjackets of complacency and defy efforts to manipulate us. We should vote wisely and selflessly this November for inclusivity and unity.
Yours faithfully,
Saieed I Khalil
Joshua A Singh
