Dear Editor,
Audreyanna Thomas’ letter titled, ‘We have to select leaders who are good for the country,’ (SN, Sept 1) should stimulate discussion on how to overcome “fears of the other race”, and simultaneously reduce the excessively high levels of racial voting.
The following three quotes from Audreyanna’s letter might help to keep our focus on the issues:
(1) Many Indians were taught that Black leadership is an object of fear and likewise many Blacks were taught that Indian leadership is an object of fear. The question to be determined here is to what extent are these fears real or justified?
(2) President Granger and Prime Minister Nagamootoo both have the responsibility and the burden to change the psyche of Indian and Black Guyanese about who should be our leaders.
(3) The PNC and the PPP/C might have contributed to this perception during their administrations.
Blacks and Indians lived in villages, side by side, from the mid-19th century to the 1950s. They worked in each other’s rice and sugar cane fields, attended each other’s family weddings, festivals and social events. They shared things and developed amity and trust. The problem started in the 1950s with the birth of racial politics. The PNC insisted that its leader can only be Black; the PPP, its leader Indian. Perceptions started there and grew and grew and became hardened realities.
Burnham and Jagan both made sure they had deputies from the alternative race group, but the population quickly saw this for what it is ‒ window-dressing. And as if to confirm this perception, when these founder-leaders died, somehow from their graves they made sure they were succeeded only by another from their ethnicity. They both did almost nothing to change or mitigate the legacy and burden of racial politics they bequeathed to the land they both claimed to love so much.
Jagan could have stepped aside in the early 1960s and have his party elect Brindley Benn, Cedric Nunes or Ashton Chase to be the party’s leader, and teach and preach to the population that the PPP was never intended to be an Indo-ethnic party. Burnham should have done the same. (In the 1960s Jagan and Burnham became demi-gods, and were deemed more important than the parties they headed. In America, it is the other way around; the parties are always more important than the person or race of the person that heads the party.)
Jagdeo had another chance to change the perception of his party by mentoring one of the dedicated and loyal Africans in his party to succeed him in 2011. Both Jagdeo and Ramotar created a PM place-holder and put an African to occupy the position, but made sure he/she could not ever succeed to the presidency. (Jagdeo hand-picked Ramotar, but by the same domineering power he possesses he could have easily hand-picked an African member of his party. Does Jagdeo have a future vision for the PPP and the nation? And what might that vision be?)
Since Burnham died an Indian man named Winston Murray rose up and decided to run for the top position. While some folks rallied behind him (and this is very encouraging; high praise is due to Van West Charles), others blocked him. If the PNC didn’t have a Winston Murray, you would want to invent him. Murray embodied in his race and his person the promise to change the perceptions of the PNC and permanently change the trajectory of Guyana’s racial politics. He also would have done for the PNC exactly what AFC did ‒ gather in 10% or more of the Indian vote. Murray did not live, but the point I make is valid for academic reasons. The concept should be replicated in the near future, if the PNC seriously desires to change the racial politics of the land. If an Indian named Moses is trustworthy enough to be your coalition partner, why couldn’t he also be considered to become the leader in a merger of two parties? Focus on the potential benefits such a transformational idea could achieve for the nation.
What happened in Guyana today is that the PNC did nothing to overcome its perception as an African party, but benefited from forming a coalition with a party that has Indian leadership and support. This looks like an ad hoc solution to an intractable problem in the society that needs deeper sociological and institutional solutions to permanently transform the nation.
To promote genuine racial cohesion, both the PPP and the PNC must be perceived as non-racial parties. That is not happening in Guyana today. Any progress on this matter must start with both PPP and PNC taking profound steps to destroy their ethnic perceptions.
There is a suggestion promoted in some committees here and there that the PNC and AFC should do a merger. I would support such a merger if the merger embodies the hope and promise to destroy the PNC’s ethnic perceptions. Such a merger offers the best promise – if not a guarantee ‒ for the merged party to increase its share of the Indian vote in future elections. Of course this is contingent upon the current coalition government working very hard to solve the many problems bedeviling the country – reducing the crime rate and road carnage, building hydro-power, renewing the low-carbon deal with Norway, improving the quality of life and growing the economy.
The solution to the problem Audreyanna raises, begins and ends with actions that only the PPP and PNC can perform. They have to possess the desire to put an end to excessively high levels of racial voting. This, in my opinion, is the solution to the lack of racial and social cohesion in Guyanese society.
Yours faithfully,
Mike Persaud
