Dear Editor,
As we recognized the 36th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Walter Rodney, my Facebook post, led someone to pose a question to me that I have heard asked several times. Why did Rodney an African Guyanese intellectual oppose Burnham, another African Guyanese leader? Usually the psychological outfit that allows this question to be asked is within the context of the imaging of the racial conflict in Guyana, Indian vs African, and with Burnham being situated as the black protectorate and Jagan the Indian protectorate.
I want to attempt to answer this question, because whenever I see the question posed, the analysis in my opinion is often inadequate. Notwithstanding, I recently enjoyed Dr. David Hinds’ short essay on Rodney and the necessity of resistance. I believe to understand Rodney’s opposition to Burnham one has to understand the necessity of resistance formed within the radical intellectual Marxist thought, which developed in post-colonial societies. It was formed on a critique of the maintenance by the new petit bourgeois and bureaucratic rationalism of the old social order. In Guyana’s case the racialized order in relation to labour, capital and the state.
However, this idea of resistance is properly explained in Michel Foucault’s 1976 essay on power and resistance. Foucault writes “Where there is power, there is resistance, and yet or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power…. Hence there is no single locus of great refusal, no soul of revolt, source of all rebellion, or pure law of revolution. Instead there is specific cases of resistance.” What Foucault is saying here is that in relation to power, resistance must be employed, there is no great refusal.
It is therefore simply within this context that Rodney’s opposition to Burnham should be viewed. By the time Rodney returned to Guyana in 1974, Burnham had lost political legitimacy, but held on to power. This is not often given much consideration in the political analysis on the period. Given the racial demographics, Burnham could not have won elections in Guyana without a coalition. Prior to 1964 Burnham had lost elections to Jagan and the PPP twice. From 1968 there were credible claims of electoral irregularities. With Indian Guyanese being in the majority and loyal to Jagan, and racial voting patterns established strictly along racial lines, there was no credible way that Burnham and the PNC could have won elections legitimately. Therefore, Burnham Government would’ve become illegitimate in a democratic expectation.
Also, by 1974 most of Burnham’s programmes under a socialist agenda and an emerging bankrupt state had begun to fail. Guyanese were becoming despondent. Jagan was contented with opposing Burnham under the normalcy of political power relations with a few exceptions.
The question is why did the Burnham state view Rodney as more of a threat than Jagan? The answer to this question lies in understanding the different form of resistance that Rodney and Jagan presented. Burnham and Jagan operated under the same political praxis of racial amalgamation. Burnham consolidated his support among African Guyanese and Jagan consolidated his support among Indian Guyanese. Jagan’s resistance, though timid, was formed on the basis of sporadic economic sabotage of the state which posed no direct threat to Burnham’s power structure. The state can be bankrupted but yet power maintained. Such was the case with the Burnham state.
Rodney’s radical intellectual conditioning required him to resist Burnham’s illegitimate power on the basis of removing power from the state and placing it directly in the hands of the people. The strategy which Rodney and the WPA employed was direct sustained confrontation which requires people’s awareness of a political alternative to racial divisions and illegitimacy (People’s Power No Dictator). Any threat to Burnham’s power structure requires a peeling away of his support base. This posed a greater threat than economic sabotage. Guyanese of all racial groups had begun to gravitate towards this message of unity and racial cohesion.
Rodney, an African Guyanese intellectual was not opposing an African Guyanese leader. Rodney’s resistance was resistance to illegitimate power, resistance to an increasingly militarized and para-militarized state, resistance to political hegemony and resistance to racial manipulation.
When the state become too powerful resistance is necessary. It was the lack of resistance that allowed Jagdeo and the PPP to criminalize the state and maintain power for as long as he did.
Yours faithfully,
Dennis Wiggins
