By Dr Bertrand Ramcharan
Seventh Chancellor of the
University of Guyana
In two previous offerings we discussed the need for historical analysis of Guyana’s ethnic predicament drawing upon the experiences of our various peoples, and we looked at the strategies of the late Dr Cheddi Jagan to promote national reconciliation and unity. In this concluding essay, we look at the strategies of one of Guyana’s leading intellectuals, the late Dr Walter Rodney, who was surely one of the most creative thinkers to have graced the academic and political scene in Guyana.
Like Dr Jagan, Dr Rodney had a class-based approach to Guyana’s ethnic predicament and for achieving reconciliation. Tellingly, he argued for a government of national unity, something that his co-leader of the WPA, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, has also advocated. Dr Roopnaraine, in 1996, called for “Consti-tutional engineering, a national Govern-ment that begins the process of national healing and reconciliation. It is the only way forward.” It is a thought well worth reflecting on.
In an essay on The Struggle for Demo-cracy in Guyana, written shortly before he was assassinated, Dr Rodney left a political testament with us. He assessed that the people’s struggle inside Guyana had contributed most to political freedom in Guyana. The efforts of slaves and indentured bondsmen had made the question of liberation both a national and international issue. However, when Guyana gained its independence the population remained divided into different classes socially and economically.
One of the most bitter struggles in the history of Guyana, Rodney wrote, had been the struggle to establish the right to work, that is to say, the right to be offered employment that would provide a decent living. The right to work meant the right to eat and the right to live. After slavery, the free population was willing to work, but they demanded fair conditions, whereupon the planters brought in indentured labourers to undercut the demand for better wages and conditions.
The indentured labourers themselves soon grew aware of the situation. They too demanded better conditions and the result was that they were refused employment while fresh indentured labourers were brought in. The right to employment in crop time, the right to employment out of crop season, the right to employment in the public sector – all of these were at least partially won by the end of the colonial period.
Alongside the right to work, the Guyanese working class had fought for the right to housing. Acquiring a house depended on what one earned and was therefore linked to the right to work. Plantation labourers had been housed in logies from slavery days. “When labourers became free, the planters told them they could enjoy the privilege of staying in the plantation logies if they worked on the estates without protest.”
Historically, estates had ejected tenants who exercised their right to strike. That was why our people preferred houses in a village instead of houses on estates. On the sugar estates, in the villages and in the towns, workers had organized to demand decent housing and to demand housing with no strings attached. Village residents had fought the planters and the colonists in order to practice democracy at the local government level. The urban working class had led the way in establishing trade unions and in exercising the right to strike.
Dr Rodney considered that we must solve the difficult problem of creating national unity in the face of class differences. So long as there were classes, there must be some degree of class conflict. Nevertheless, it was necessary to build broad unity across existing class lines. His vision was to build a society in which working people enjoyed the fruits of their own labour. A united working class was the base on which national unity was to be built. It was the working class, including housewives and the unemployed who suffered most. It was the working class that had sacrificed most in the struggle for bread and justice.
A working class interpretation, Dr Rodney thought, must win over the progressive element of other classes and strata. The Guyanese working people, who were in the immense majority, expected to have their labour power reflected in the power of the state. This is an insight well worth thinking about. Can one say that, historically, and at the present time, working people are reflected in the power of the state? How might this thought influence constitutional reform in Guyana?
Dr Rodney called for a government of national reconstruction and national unity and insisted: “Inevitably, the working people must play a leading role in such a government.” It was, he thought, proof of the maturity of our workers that they fully understood the need for patriotic compromise with other classes and social strata. He thought that the vast majority of our people would surely rally around a programme that restored the economy through the participation of all. They would rally round a programme that restored democratic rights.
Dr Rodney summed-up the national question by saying that all classes in Guyana had an objective interest in unity. Each class had suffered in one way or another from arbitrary rule, insecurity and lack of the opportunity to do an honest job. “Collectively, we are faced with the threat of disintegration and the loss of commitment to Guyana as a nation state.” This could tragically be seen in the large numbers lining up at the embassies and passport offices and in large numbers who had but one ambition in life – to leave Guyana.
He felt that the challenges of the time called for “resolves of patriotism”. The road to recovery of national purpose lay through the restoration of democracy. All parties and all interest groups must somehow be represented and be seen to be represented in a government of national reconstruction and national unity.
As if seeing into the future, the great Guyanese wrote: “Few individuals want to willingly invite their own death. Yet many will be found who are prepared to fight fearlessly for their rights even if their lives are threatened. The human spirit has a remarkable capacity to rise above oppression; and only the fools who now misrule Guyana can imagine that our population alone lacks such capacity.”
It would be a fitting way of honouring this great patriot to recall, and implement, his idea of a government of national unity: “A government of national unity must be declared. It will unite all races and classes. It will attract civilians and uniformed personnel.”
