By Percy C. Hintzen
Percy Hintzen is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley and Professor of Global and Sociocultural Studies and Director of African and African Diaspora Studies at Florida International University. He is a Guyanese sociologist who focuses on postcolonial political economy, globalization, and migration. He is a specialist on the Caribbean.
Resource curse, sometimes referred to as the Dutch Disease, is a term employed to describe the anomaly of countries that are resource-rich, particularly in strategic minerals, while at the same time experiencing conditions of persistent and deteriorating economic crisis. The curse has very little to do with resource endowment and very much with governance. And the reasons why it affects, almost exclusively, countries of the global south, relate directly to the legacies of colonialism.
I remember distinctly, that in the late nineteen fifties, Guyana was listed as one of the countries with the best prospects for “development” because of its resource endowment, diverse ecology, relatively large size, and very low population density. At the time, it was one of the three biggest producers of metal-grade bauxite along with Jamaica and Suriname (then one of the most strategic minerals), and the world’s major producer of calcined bauxite (critical for most industries and products, because of its heat resistant properties). The country was then also a major producer of sugar and had enormous potential for other forms of agro-production because of empolderization including a rice industry that was on the cusp of a major growth spurt, partly from the introduction of new varieties. The economy, and particularly the income of some members of the black working class, was also being supplemented by small own-account alluvial production of gold and diamonds. Singapore, at the time, was a mere backwater, rife with crime, malnutrition, violence, political conflict, and post-World War II devastation. Now the positions of the two countries have changed. Singapore has become one of the most spectacularly successful countries in the world despite its small size (277 square miles versus Guyana’s 83,000 square miles), an absence of natural resources, ethno-racial divisions (Chinese, Malays, South Asians), and an extraordinarily high population density with a population of 5.6 million versus Guyana’s mere 770 thousand). Singapore experienced a period of violent conflict prior to and soon after its independence in 1965 that dwarfed the racial violence of the early sixties in Guyana. Despite this history, Singapore has prevailed to become, today, the 7th richest country in the world by GDP per capita and is ranked 9th in Human Development by the United Nations Development Programme. By contrast, Guyana has had the dubious distinction of being the 2nd poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Now, the new panacea is oil, which, in Guyanese aspirational dreams, will flow like manna from heaven to catapult the country into one of the richest in the world. The country has been here before, so why would oil be any different? The current focus on resource endowment and abundance (of oil) takes our attention away from the real problem that plagues the country— the crisis of governance and a politics that relies on the mobilization of racial sentiment. While the consequences of the curse is felt by the majority of the population, the crisis that it brings redounds to the benefit of a national educated, professional, bureaucratic, commercial and political elite highly dependent upon ties to an international economic and political order on which it depends for its economic well-being, political legitimacy, and authority. These elite mimic the social and cultural forms of the highly developed global mega-cities, while measuring the progress of the country by the yardstick of convergence with them. They use their power, influence, and authority to squander the country’s resources that they mortgage in quixotic attempts to close the development gap. And they use their global mobility to escape the consequences of their authority when things get too desperate. Singapore chose not to take this path (it had little choice because it had no resources to squander). It arrived on the global metropolitan stage by assuring itself and its people of the capacities and capabilities to do so with a laser-like focus on their social and material well-being. And it did not sacrifice its cultural fundamentals. Nor did it mortgage its future in ways that cannot be repaid.
Guyana was poised for success in the nineteen fifties precisely because, at the time, its politics was forged out of a consensus, driven and directed by working class mobilization that began in the first decade of the 20th century. Politics was organized around demands for universal betterment and universal rights. Differences were recognized and accommodated, and even celebrated and enjoyed, notwithstanding the prejudices inherited from colonial attitudes, values and judgments. This politics of liberation culminated in the nineteen forties in a multi-racial, multi-cultural, anti-colonial movement that crossed the class divide before it was derailed by the aspirations of a local proto-elite. The resource endowment of the country, and particularly its bauxite, were too critical and strategic to allow the hoi polloi to forge a post-colonial order for the generalized benefit of the country and its people. Perhaps, the absence of resources was a blessing for Singapore. Its elite had nothing but its people to rely on if they were to forge a future for themselves. Not so in Guyana. Beginning in 1957, Britain used its colonial authority and its political and economic alliance with the United States (then the most dominant economic and political power in the world) to conscript Guyana’s proto-elite into its effort to undermine the mass movement. Together, the three refashioned the country’s anti-colonial, anti-Western, anti-capitalist politics into one that depended on racial allegiance and mobilization of racial sentiment. Once this occurred, political support came to rest blindly, not on personal and national well-being and social and cultural dignity, but on absolute fealty to a racial political leadership. Political, economic, social, and cultural degradation mattered little in the face of such obedience. The elite, in turn, reaped the rewards of the new political order, even during Guyana’s darkest days when the governors merely switched allegiance from Euro-America to Eastern Europe (Europe nonetheless). Or, they chose to take their money and skills elsewhere.
The Singapore example could not be more different. Politics in the country became organized around a national consensus spanning all the ethno-racial, cultural, and class segments. It coalesced around a single political party bent on preservation of racial and cultural differentiation while ensuring economic and social entitlements and security for everyone. A welfare state was organized by harnessing the resources of global capital internationally, and by developing the human capital of the population to service its needs. While there is much to criticize about this model of super-capitalism and quasi-authoritarianism, at least the country was able to escape the throes of economic crisis and social degradation with its dignity intact, for the most part.
In Guyana, there were hopeful signs in the eighties when a multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-class coalition of groups called the Patriotic Coalition for Democracy was proposing an alternative vision and an alternative system of governance based on national unity. Its manifesto was rooted in an anti-capitalist alternative to the Singapore model with possibilities for a more participatory form of democracy. Rather than isolation and disengagement from the global economy that was the fashion of an earlier phase of anti-capitalism, there were predispositions for engagement on terms that were best for the country and for the well-being of the population, not unlike the democratic socialism practiced by many Western European countries. It does not take that much for a country with such a small population as Guyana to enjoy the fruits of its natural endowments (including its human endowments), especially given the abundance of its resources. It would not take much to create conditions where, in the words of Indian Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen, people would be able to “lead the kind of life they have reason to value” while preserving their social, cultural, and ecological diversity and retaining their dignity. The majority of people in Guyana need not be down-pressed by their precarious and insecure existence.
The problem, and the curse, is that the entire goal and objective of political participation is organized around racial allegiances, (even though political parties feign multi-culturalism and multi-racialism by including elite beneficiaries of the system who do not care which party is in power). And this redounds negatively on the manner in which the country’s abundant resources are used. This is now becoming evident in popular indifference to the conditions of extraction of the country’s vast reserves of oil. Most seem unconcerned that the terms which govern oil production are the very ones identified as causes of the resource curse. They are the very terms that have governed agro-production and mineral extraction throughout colonial governance—-everywhere! Most seem unconcerned about the potential negative effect of oil extractivism on the eco-system (not the least from an oil spill). Why should they? No voices were raised against the tremendous harm wrought by the timber and gold multinationals. No one seems to be bothered that the price of oil may very well plunge below the cost of production in the very near future as a result of increasing and intensified use of alternative energy sources in efforts to stave off the negative environment effects of fossil fuels (the former Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Eric Williams famously boasted, that “oil don’t spoil” at the very time when it was “spoiling” the country’s economy and its social and economic well-being to the point of provoking a violent revolt). And no one seems to care about the perpetuation of indebtedness because the country is forced to pay for a significant proportion of production costs with money it does not have. Rather, everyone seems caught up in anticipatory celebration of the country’s impending wealth. There are many in the Guyanese Diaspora who are cashing out and making plans to return “home” to contribute to the clogging up of the country’s roadways with an ever-increasing volume of cars. They can now replicate their lifestyles abroad shopping and cavorting in bigger and bigger malls like Giftland while being entertained in Movietowne. Those without the benefit of an overseas sojourn are able to live “the good life” vicariously, supported by remittances from families and friends, while living in houses purchased in anticipation of the latter’s eventual re-migration “back home” to enjoy the conveniences that they create while seeking relief from the pressures of their host countries. This form of dependence will continue. And the elite in power will attribute the “good life” that the “returnees” bring with them to the benefits of oil-wealth and use this as a symbol of progress.
Guyanese need to ask themselves what they actually want and the kind of lives that they want to live. They need to contemplate whether the resource curse will prevent them from getting there, as it has done since the time of European colonial domination. This should be the paramount question that dictates their vote in the upcoming election.
