Dear Editor,
The debate on the Linden deaths, and, prominently, the causes of the protest, are essentially and critically political. The solutions can only emerge from the political. Again, in a country with a history of sometimes violent politics, the governing party is obliged to not only work to calm matters, but to evade the usual pacifying hyopcrisies and move to solutions for the larger political problems that underlie the discontent. It would be demeaning and a deceit for the government to pretend and to proclaim that the Lindeners died because they wanted free power and lights. The government ought to lift itself to the awareness that the perception of neglect and favouritism, the refusal to allow greater media access to the community, the local government system in prolonged crisis, the absence of a successful development plan to sustain or transform the Linden economy, the nauseating platitudes coming from some of the PPP/Civic point men, the suggestion that since some died protesting on the Corentyne others may die in Buxton or Linden. The government has to review its propaganda and playbook and recognise that the politics it has been conducting in Linden, that it would not have permitted itself in rice or sugar, reveals a selective irresponsibility and discriminatory disdain. And that the deaths in Linden will be seen by some as expressions of a politics that is racist as it is contemptuous of an important segment of the population. The government has to be aware that, in the same way that the PPP in its propaganda steadfastly exploited the difficulties of the seventies international oil crises and the suffering it caused here and worse in Jamaica, and blamed everything on the PNC, the opposition will mostly ignore the conditions that bauxite, internationally has been through, and sympathise with affected bauxite workers claiming the state has not done enough. The PPP will be conscious of the realities of its unflattering image at this time and of the fact that the governance model it favours is demonstrably inadequate to these times, leading as it does to alienation and fears of discrimination. And it would have had to take into account that the events we are now witnessing will feed the theorists of marginalisation and inevitably link into the chain that includes the Guyana Labour College situation, the University of Guyana situation, the poor pay in the public service, the VAT and cost of living issues, the neglect of the capital city, the patent clientelism and disequilibria in the allocation of scare resources that many will see. The government will certainly need to embrace the realisation that this is a conflict it cannot win through confrontation. A debate in which the hearts on the other side will not be soothed, and a moment when history will force it to look at certain truths about itself.
There is little doubt in my mind that the PPP sincerely regrets the violence and police reaction. The party has nothing to gain by this kind of provocation. But, by a twist of fate, the killings occurred in a month when the state-owned newspaper indulges itself in hateful anti-African rhetoric, and in an ambience of heightened tensions as the opposing camps on the political field manoeuvred for the high ground through the courts and parliamentary motions and protests. This was not a good time to be killing people. The grief is not assuaged by the fact that the ones pulling the triggers were the “kith and kin” of the dead. It merely added another layer to the perceived denigration behind the acts and the rhetoric that preceded it. So far, President Donald Ramotar has reacted well. He has ordered an inquiry and met with opposition leaders. He has committed to sanctions of the policemen involved, and, despite the initial reflex to blame the other side, has treated this as a problem that representatives of the people, together, have to arrest and solve. He has proposed a review of the electricity rate hike. But it is clear that the mood of the people of Linden had been misread in the same way that the party misread the mood of its traditional base at last elections and that it continues to misread the country’s emotions at this time. And it is a time calling for deeper reforms and the abandonment of the juvenile cockiness that has lasted too long after 1992. It is a time for the PPP to realise that the tides have turned. And that they have done so even as the state is on the brink of several important infrastructure projects that would, correctly done, benefit us all. This is not a time for the government to provoke to wrath or succumb to the unseemly habits of appealing to racial fears. The people of Linden and Guyanese in general seem less concerned today about who killed whom in the sixties. The ‘urgencies of the now‘are upon us. The government has got to start taking the people into its confidence in the same way that, when the oil crisis hit in the seventies, Mr Burnham, Hamilton Green and other leaders explained the effects on the economy, on foreign exchange reserves, on “redeployment,“ and on local and international politics. The PPP of President Ramotar has got to say it had, as a good ward of the international financial institutions, no choice but to move, sooner or later to better tax recovery systems like VAT. It has got to say whether its Economic
Recovery Programe permits any significant salary increases for the public sector, instead of pretending to play hard ball. It has got to make it clear that there is more than likely an imposed ceiling on the level of recruitment and so the state no longer has the absorptive capacity to sop up unemployment. It has to say clearly that it lacks the resources to spend more on reviving Linden or sugar without recourse to borrowing and aid from friendly countries like India and China. In short the government has got to make it clear that, even as it rejoices in its aura of power and invincibility, it has been a petty player pretending to master large decisions. And that much of the programme and the macro-economic control of which it boasts is the application of formulae found in the conditions to which it bows.
Saying honestly that better cannot be done and doing the best with what one has, equitably, engages the people in a respectful and dignified exchange. In the meantime you do what you should about Freedom of Information and local government and the matters over which you do have control. The contrary is to live with the image of an emasculated ignorance concerned only with its own continuance at the trough. To be credible, should the government choose this new relationship with the people and its leadership, another idea of ‘the people‘ has to emerge from the half-Marxist party that leads us. The old pre-war communist notion of people to be looked down upon as mindless peasants and proletarians only there to be led, or backward co-ethnics to be pandered to, is perhaps the root of problem.
The idea that a recital of what happened in the sixties or during the 28 years will suffice to drive them behind the barricades increasingly appears grotesque and outdated in the new realities of a government whose inefficiencies and corruption are surely exaggerated, but equally surely need to be reined in.
In a country that experienced civil disorder within living memory, in which loss of life on both sides had been roughly equal, no one wishes any longer to see blood spilled. We must stop killing and mourning and counting our dead. The nation would better solve its problems and advance on a foundation of unity and involvement of all in the leadership. We do so
voluntarily or face the possible threat of having to do so through violence and fear. And that is a solution to be avoided at all costs. The country has to redesign its governance structure to ensure no recurrence of strife. So all sides have but a single task, to calm Linden, yes, but urgently, to put on the table a menu that will help us avoid other flare-ups elsewhere and a worsening of the situation. Let us therefore consider Linden the occasion for us to improve more than electricity delivery.
Yours faithfully,
Abu Bakr