Dear Editor,
It appears that the battle lines have been drawn – stridently and abrasively though not definitively. It is uncertain, therefore, to determine the frontline. Are some of us, who want to participate, likely to be shot in the back for want of knowledge on the issue – importantly where and how to aim? I am speaking, of course, of the recent announcement by the African National Congress that Mr Burnham was to be posthumously granted the Oliver Tambo Award (OTA).
(Ed Note: The award has been deferred indefinitely.)
Objections were originally raised by long time Rodneyite, Prof Horace Campbell of Syracuse University, upstate New York. According to Prof Campbell the efforts underway not only seek to rehabilitate Burnham but are directed at and
singularly intended to “discredit the ideas and the lessons of the life of Walter Rodney” (1804 CaribVoices News Letter, 24th April, 2013). But its political agenda may not be far from the surface. Indeed, it seems to be sutured around an Africanist claim that not only could/did Burnham perform “stellar” service for African Liberation, he was able, at home, to “hold the line against Indians.” Rodney’s politics, in Campbell’s view, was of an entirely different order. While he provided political/ intellectual support for African Liberation he also saw that as part of the larger struggle for human emancipation, including and importantly making common cause with both “blacks and Indian workers” in Guyana. That, in other words, was his essential dialectic.
Others are not so easily convinced. The main response to Prof Campbell and his supporters came from Lincoln Lewis (Guest Columnist, Demerara Waves, 30th April, 2013), General Secretary of the TUC. Lewis argues that Guyana’s support of the anti-apartheid struggle under Burnham’s leadership was not an individual or personal act but something of a “national character.” The award of the OTA by the ANC government did nothing more than seek “to recognise the leadership of Forbes Burnham in fighting apartheid” and is, therefore, “justly deserving.”
On the other hand, the attempt by some to throw in the murder/death of Walter Rodney as a fait accompli, harbinger of a known truth, is a “red herring.” An independent commission, of any configuration, has not pronounced on the matter. Where is the guilt? Lewis is not humoured and believes that the effort afoot is nothing less than an attempt “to hold this nation hostage by using Rodney’s death as a milch cow for their self serving purposes.” In addition, the “opposition,” despite the space and opportunity given to it, especially after the unanimous resolution of the National Assembly in 2005, has failed to “bring closure to the issue.” Moreover, both Jagan and Ramphal were recipients of the award, without objection, so why is Burnham now demonized for his [family’s] acceptance of the very award, when in fact he was the architect of Guyana’s anti-apartheid policy? Lewis closes his argument by suggesting that, “The contributions by the People of Guyana to South Africa’s struggle must not be held hostage to misplaced egos and hate. No political party, government, or individual, under any guise, must be allowed to use their poisoned pens to deny not only Forbes Burnham, but the people of this country, their rightful place in South Africa’s struggles.” In other words, the award of the OTA is much more than a token gesture to one man, but the recognition of a national/collective effort.
Lewis’s column in Demerara Waves is followed by several blogs, 11 altogether, all of which, with one exception, are in unqualified support of Mr Lewis. The one exception is Jinnah Rahman who takes umbrage at Lewis’s argument and seeks to reframe it in the dialectical register of Campbell, ie, bringing in Burnham’s homegrown misdeeds. He also suggests that there would be little difficulty in accepting the award as a “national” one – without, of course, Burnham’s name attached to it.
Part of the problem here, it seems, is the difficulty in coming to terms with our past – who did what to whom and how we bring closure to it. The failure/unwillingness of our political classes to recognize this and equal inability to address it, because someone of importance is likely to be implicated in the process, will continue to trip us up – little minefields, like this one, awaiting an errant/unsuspecting foot to trigger the explosion. And while none, singly, maybe able to disable us altogether collectively they serve to continuously fragment and undermine our capacity to act as a nation. Without a common frame of reference – the result of an independent commission (a truth commission ‒ maybe) we continue to live the history of fragments. Here Lewis’ point is well taken that such an endeavour requires a collective effort to record the contribution of all the people not just about the anti-apartheid struggle, I want to add, but of the difficult years of the ’60s to ’80s.
If, I believe, we take this longer view of the process many things fall in place. First, I think Prof Campbell overstates his case. There is no conspiracy to “discredit the ideas and the lessons of the life of Walter Rodney.” He “is” far too big for that. His reputation as a scholar and activist has been solidified over the years and there is little on the ground to suggest that there is someone silly enough to undertake such an effort. Second, Campbell’s racial implication ‒ “holding the line against Indians” or the WPA as multi-racial party – part of his dialectic register, seems to have missed Ramphal (Burnham’s Attorney General and Minister of State) and Jagan, divisive figures in their own right, both of whom received the very award without a murmur.
Let me wonder aloud and ask if Prof Campbell’s view may not have been driven by a certain “reputation” of Burnham rather than anything his supporters/well-wishers might have engineered? Moreover, if Jagan and Ramphal recieved the award without a murmur why is a different measure attached to Burnham’s receipt? Similarly, Rahman seems preoccupied with Burnham’s homegrown misdeeds but willing to allow Jagan and Ramphal the same free ride that Campbell permits.
My point should be clear by now. If it still is not, let me say that the Burnham family should have been allowed to accept the award in the name of Burnham without further harassment. The present rejectionist assumption is disagreeable and unfair. It does, however, have one advantage in its favour: deflect attention from the larger and more important issue of a public inquiry into the misdeeds of all, and not a partisan effort to unduly denounce selective participants, however large they may loom in our imaginative fantasy.
Yours faithfully,
Rishee Thakur
