I am not one of those who believe that for us to make progress as a nation our politicians could or should forget the past. Indeed, I believe that those who prevail upon us to do so are usually those for whom such memory is a disadvantage. Far from forgetting the past, notwithstanding apologies from various quarters, Africans are now requesting reparation for atrocities done to them hundreds of years ago. And to tell Jews to forget the past might well be a crime in Israel!
The past, the present and the future must all be properly combined and presented if we are to have a holistic picture of ourselves as a budding nation.
This recognition aside, it speaks volumes about our political context that today, when even the staunchest of communist states must make accommodations to free-market liberalism, our politicians can see advantage in haranguing their supporters with a future of food shortages that were based upon a widely held early 20th century political and economic vision. For this alone such people should be laughed off their platforms.
But the contention of these conniving politicians is richer than you think. At the precise time that these shortages existed in Guyana, their political party, the PPP, was busy supporting all manner of inhuman regimes that not only made it impossible for their people to have access to various goods and services but were responsible for some of the most atrocious brutalities of the 20th century.
The PNC finds itself on the defensive not because, given its context, it has such a terrible record, but because it has not taken the time, as the PPP has done in various writings, the most important being “The West on Trial”, to explain its own position. Indeed, PPP’s propaganda has ruled the day and a large number of PNC supporters, even people in its leadership, has swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
Burnham miscalculated in banning food items that were part of our basic diet, but a less socialist and dogmatic Desmond Hoyte soon rectified that position. But as one of many examples, Jagan’s miscalculations lumbered us with a Guyana/Venezuela border controversy, which to this day we appear unable to rectify and which is hampering our development more that any banning could have done.
Of course, those who are making these kinds of claims are continuing the long tradition of ethnic mobilisation that has gradually became entrenched in the political culture of the two major political parties. Indeed, I would venture to say that APNU is treating Ms. Vanessa Kissoon and the Linden constituency with scant regard because, in the context of ethnic voting, they believe that the people of that constituency have nowhere to run!
The Burnham/Lachmansingh defeat sent the liberal democratic nationalist movement and their international capitalist allies back to the drawing board. As we have seen, long before the Cold War began the national bourgeoisie viewed communism as a threat that was to be extirpated by almost any means, and in their view the PPP represented just such a threat.
If there is one piece of history that the perennially well-oiled PPP propaganda machinery has been unable to eradicate it is that the party’s resort to ethnic mobilisation was responsible for its victories in 1957 and 1961.
Cheddi Jagan argued that the PPP did not initiate apan jhaat politics. According to Jagan, during the 1953 election campaign what most alarmed the PPP was the cross-fire of racism in which it was caught. The African-orientated National Democratic Party (NDP) and the League of Coloured People tried to win support by appealing to African racism. “Their propaganda line was simply enough – the PPP was Indian-dominated, and Burnham, an African, was only being used ….. On the other hand the Indians were being told that the PPP was sacrificing their interest; selling out to Africans” (“The West on Trial,”1966).
But while the PPP may not have initiated ethnic mobilisation in Guyana, faced with the real possibility of losing to the Burnham/Lachmansingh alliance in an ethnically competitive political environment such as Guyana’s, it must be the only political party in the world that would have passed up such an opportunity. We must not forget, too, that at the time even academics had not properly captured the political dynamics of countries like Guyana.
It was quite easy for the PPP, like the UDP/NDP before it and even some politicians today, to view ethnic mobilisation as transient. Once their party was in government it would eradicate such tendencies. This approach was even easier for the Marxist-orientated Jagans to believe. After all, the economic and not the racial cleavage is the major contradiction in society!
Soon after the 1957 elections, Burnham conceded the designation People’s Progressive Party to the Jagan faction, formed the PNC and, against much opposition in the PNC, set about merging with the NDP and UDP. However, the following report suggests that to many political activists at the time, ethnic mobilisation was not the dominant consideration, and even then they saw, what many of us appear now to have forgotten: the need for the strongest possible opposition in parliament.
“There is, however, a strong body of opinion in both parties totally against the idea of a merger. … The view is that since the PNC is an offshoot of the PPP, its members should consider merging with that party. On the other hand, some people believe there should be a merger with the National Labour Front, which is an off-shoot of the UDP. This suggestion does not seem to find favour in the PNC or the UDP since the views on (West Indian) Federation of the PPP and the NLF (a business Indian orientated party led by Lionel Luckhoo) are on the opposite side. Apart from Federation, it is also felt that if there is a merger between the PPP and the PNC and the UDP and the NLF, it will go far to build up a strong two-party system which would implement the suggestion of the members of the British Parliament who said here recently that the two-party system would make for healthier government in a British Guiana of the future” (Daily Chronicle, 29/05/58)
Come the 1961 elections, Burnham and his group were again pretty sure that they would carry the day. So much so that Burnham promised that he would join with the winner to demand Guyana’s independence from the British. He and his supporters again sustained a severe thrashing and he promptly changed his mind about independence!
Notwithstanding the massive gerrymandering of constituencies against it, the PPP won 20 of the 35 available seats. The PNC won only 11, and the UF 4. The national anti-communist alliance and their international allies were losing heart that, in the context of ethnic voting, the PPP could ever be stopped. A strategy much wider in scope had to be developed for alliance alone could not bring down the PPP.
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
