Dear Editor,
Developments on the political and social fronts are unfolding and moving at a measured pace.
Every passing day the spirit of resistance linked to mass action is becoming pregnant with increasing potency. New frontiers of struggle are opening up allowing at first for separate, but sooner rather than later, collective and united action based on greater participation, collaboration and mobilization on the part of non-governmental organizations, civil society, the trade unions and religious bodies as well as the parliamentary opposition.
At the trade union level, sugar workers, the workers at GTT, and workers in general are feeling the squeeze or facing the threat of dismissal or both. ‘Tis a bleak future that beckons and not the ‘good life’ as promised. Public servants and ranks in the Joint Services are no better off. They are badly treated. Yet they are called upon to be resilient and to make sacrifices on a daily basis. No rewards are in sight. They are finding other ways to make ends meet. Guyana’s farming community is up in arms against the excruciating taxation measures imposed on them without any consultation whatsoever.
The MAPM has opened up a new arena for struggle as a broad- based social movement. And though lacking any formal organizational structure, MAPM has the potential to energize and to mobilize mass opposition to the burdensome parking meter plus taxation measures. The youthful composition of MAPM is impressive. It is an indication of the increasing maturity and preparedness of the urban youth to stand up against the cloak and dagger politics of the city council.
MAPM’s initial successes notwithstanding, there are two critical observations: First, the Afro-Guyanese affected seem to have adopted an equi-distant position vis-à-vis the protests against the parking meters. Secondly, MAPM’s inherent inclination for spontaneity and its seeming underestimation of conscious, organizational activity by parties like the PPP can be counterproductive if not properly nurtured and there are not mutually acceptable leadership engagements agreed by key stakeholders.
The business community must be commended for its spirited contribution to the growing political and social consciousness of the Guyanese people. Indeed, they have come a far way since May 2015. Ever since the APNU+AFC coalition administration assumed office, the private sector has been ignored and left to paddle its own canoe. And as though to add insult to injury, it has recently been accused of being set up to issue a ‘political statement’ on Guyana’s economy.
Nothing could be more insulting to the intelligence of a significant community of Guyanese who, for more than two decades, have made a fantastic contribution to restoring a once battered and failed economy. The process of restoring the failed economy began long before many of those who now walk the corridors of power today ever dreamt of being clothed in ministerial garb.
Has ingratitude become a virtue of the Guyanese national psyche?
The private sector has been dealt blow after blow by a government that is clueless about the role, and contribution of the private sector, and how to work with it in a multi-racial, developing country with a small tri-sectoral and diversified economy struggling to survive in a hostile global environment. From all the indications, the government has unnecessarily and recklessly, set itself on a collision course with the private sector. This is a most unhealthy development for Guyana.
And as though it relishes the folly of engaging in several fights on several fronts at the same time, the coalition administration has locked horns with the mining community over matters where the miners would have preferred to adopt the Churchillian approach, viz, ‘to jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.’
The APNU+AFC apparently holds to the view Si vis pacem, para bellum (If you want peace, prepare for war).
At the political level, the opposition PPP is waging a parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggle on several fronts. These include the chairmanship of Gecom, the SARA bill, electoral reforms, constitutional issues, the closure of sugar estates, improving the livelihood of Guyana’s farming community and working people in general.
The political opposition landscape remains barren save and except for the PPP as the sole political lodestar. This places the party in a strategic but tactical position to achieve the basic tenets of national democracy. There is a real possibility of a totally new electoral phenomena emerging in anticipation of the 2020 elections.
What shape or form it will take politically, party-wise or otherwise organizationally, is not clear, but one thing is certain, just as it positioned itself prior to the elections in 1992, the PPP will be called upon once again, to play an equally decisive role in the run-up to the 2020 elections.
History seems to be repeating itself, not as Marx said, first as tragedy and the second time as farce, in the context of the18th Brumaire Louis Bonaparte, but this time around, as the real deal in the Guyanese context, unscientific as it may seem.
Yours faithfully,
Clement J Rohee
