Dear Editor,
Both President Donald Ramotar and Vishnu Bisram are wrong on the voting right issue. Mr Ramotar was wrong to say at the Highbury Arrival Day celebrations that, “It was they [Indians] who called for the right to vote…” And Vishnu Bisram is wrong in supporting this claim and also saying that, “Cheddi Jagan… led the struggle for universal franchise and political independence” (‘Africans, Indians and other ethnic groups fought for the right to vote,’ SN, May 17). Fighting for the right to vote and fighting to expand the right to vote are two separate and distinct issues. The right to vote comes before the expansion of this right.
Before there was Cheddi Jagan there was a trade unionist named Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow. Cheddi Jagan was eight years old in 1926 when Critchlow and other Caribbean leaders met in the hallowed halls of the legislature in Georgetown, Guyana, to chart a course for the right to self determination for the Caribbean’s peoples, via internal self-government. The struggle for one man one vote (universal franchise) started here. In fact Cheddi Jagan came to the political scene two decades after and 24 years later he co-founded the People’s Progressive Party. Cheddi Jagan’s West on Trial is a book authored by a man who saw the world through an ideological lens (communism v capitalism) and was driven by a political agenda. The West on Trial is not gospel, neither is it above questioning.
Let us get our history correct and give jack his jacket. It was at the 1926 conference the groundwork was laid for the colonised, as a collective group, to pursue the struggle for a political dispensation that would ensure their involvement, self reliance and well-being. This conference came 40 years before the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which says, “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” Further, the election of Mr Joseph Alexander Luckhoo, barrister-at-law, a first generation [Indian] descendant, elected to the Court of Policy (colonial legislature) in 1916, has nothing to do with the fact of who fought for the right to vote, unless Mr Bisram can provide credible evidence that Luckhoo was involved in the fight to secure the universal right to vote as against being elected to the legislature when voting rights were hinged on socio-economic status.
This society is witnessing a steady, sometimes subtle, other times overt rewriting of our history to reorder events to make some triumphant, and others incompetent. Incidentally, yesterday standing in front of the Critchlow Labour College, Woolford Ave, a group of students passed me and said hello. In returning the greeting I said to them, “I am looking forward to see more Glinton Hanovers.” Glinton Hanover is the Queen’s College student who won a two-year, Cdn$80,000 ($16.5M) scholarship to the Lester B Pearson College, Canada. A young lady said, “Mr Lewis, we are not QC students.” My rejoinder was the school does not define you, you define yourself and excellence comes in every environment; if you want to succeed you can, because your environment does not define, you can shape and influence your environment. The group stopped and a young man enquired, “Is that true Mr. Lewis?” To his answer, the story of Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow was shared, with words to this effect:-
Critchlow fought for the education children enjoyed today and it should not be wasted. At 13 years old he left school to become the family’s breadwinner on the death of his father. By standards then and now he was a school dropout and would have been written off as someone who would amount to no good. Yet it was he who excelled and did outstanding things for this nation and its people, despite living in a society starkly divided along class, race, colour, religion and education lines, none of which he favourably fitted into. Following this order Critchlow was not supposed to be a leader, yet he became the Moses for the workers and the society. It was he who gave leadership to the society in understanding the power of unity around a common cause, fought for the right to self determination, and understood the effectiveness of the collective will.
Critchlow must have known that the advancement of the workers was not only at the bargaining table with the employer, but also in the legislature and executive, and he led the struggle for universal adult suffrage – one man one vote – which set in train the toppling of the barriers which hindered workers having a say in influencing their political well-being. It was Critchlow who paved the way for the PPP, PNC, WPA, TUF, AFC, APNU and the rank and file among us to be treated as equals and have enshrined their right to self determination and involvement in decision-making in the workplace, parliament and their day-to-day lives.
It is thanks to the College named after him, many politicians, government and private sector workers benefit from education and training when he had very little, but dreamed of others having more. Thanks to the universal thinking of this man and his dreams for the workers’ development, despite him not having a fourth standard education, he created the environment for others to have second chance and opportunities that he didn’t have. Thanks to Critchlow, Minister Robert Persaud can claim a university education, having been taught by the College and given a second chance; and he can debunk the notion that he was a failure, would have amounted to no good, or would have to live in poverty. Thanks to Critchlow, Bharrat Jagdeo and all the PPP leaders, who though formerly poor, benefited from universal free education.
The story ended with me saying, if Critchlow did it, you can do it too. This nation has lost a generation to bigotry and will lose another, if the stories of President Ramotar, Mr Bisram and others become the new ‘truths.’ Looking into the faces of youth, with promises and potential still to be unleashed, in this media age it requires all adults of integrity to teach our children lessons of truth and show them all the beauty they possess inside, irrespective of racial identity, by giving them a sense of pride. All have contributed and their contributions must be truthfully recorded.
Yours faithfully,
Lincoln Lewis