RONALD Bulkan wrote a letter published in the press on April 28, 2015 asking “what are these persons driven by?”I would appreciate space in your letter page to respond to Mr. Bulkan, who seems to premise his letter on an assumption that I am an “Indian” person who puzzlingly switched my support to the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C).
Bulkan asks this question in his letter to the press: “…what is it that is responsible for so many of our Indian brethren not to be able to stay the course”? He goes on to list a number of people who align themselves with the PPP/C.
I would like Mr. Bulkan to know that I take serious umbrage and the strongest of objection to his labelling of me as an “Indian” person. I happen to agree with his political colleague, Moses Nagamootoo, that since we don’t carry an Indian passport, but a Guyanese passport, we’re not Indians, but Guyanese. I am Guyanese, and free under our democratic culture inculcated over the past 23 years under the PPP/C to align myself with organisations and folks of my choice.
Having said that, I must let Mr. Bulkan also know that the PPP/C responds well to my efforts at using my humble influence as a writer in designing a Guyanese social space that is engaging, cooperative, collaborative and that reaches across divides.
My efforts to build such platforms with Opposition parties proved futile, and in fact I found the deep resentment, quest for vengeance and lust for revenge within the Opposition quite a turn off.
I sought engagement with A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) for a feature I wrote on illiteracy, and got the cold shoulder and bureaucratic running around – just to get a comment. Those little things count. In the Alliance For Change (AFC), the self-righteous arrogance and outright anger of lower level quasi-intellectuals generate a bad atmosphere.
Mr. Bulkan quoted a part of my writing to back his claim that I suddenly switched sides. Please indulge me as I list for the goodly gentleman a few reasons I align myself with the PPP/C’s Donald Ramotar team.
To begin with, I don’t hold the view that the PPP/C is the paragon of virtue and perfection. The Party battles severe handicaps, falling short on several fronts. Its frontline supporters and community activists, and a few Ministers, lack the grace, character and humility of leadership to serve the Guyanese nation with any real distinction.
Like any human society, the Guyana Government and ruling Party are not utopian by any means. They are both political animals with deep instincts of survival and self-preservation.
But I believe in Donald Ramotar, and here’s why:
1. President Ramotar showed the courage, character and good conscience to convene the Rodney Commission. This act alone wins my heart and support for him, as he’s solving our most tragic historical wrong. And the entire Opposition camp criticised him for this noble act, which disgusts me.
2. After chatting with President Ramotar, I am convinced that he’s a man of outstanding character, courageous leadership, and that he serves the Guyanese nation as a servant-leader, humble and open and authentic.
3. President Ramotar remains open to new ideas and solutions.
4. I found it grotesque that the Majority Opposition in the 10th Parliament slashed the National Budget three years in a row, sought to reduce President Ramotar’s Government to ineffective governance, and ignored the results of free and fair elections to terminate the five-year term of Government to three years, as happened with late former President Janet Jagan in 1998.
5. I sincerely believe that, in President Ramotar, Dr. Roger Luncheon, Elisabeth Harper and some Ministers, the PPP/C accommodates the best leadership team as we move towards Guyana 2020.
6. While I cannot speak for the others named in Mr. Bulkan’s letter to the press, I would want the goodly fellow to know that the PPP/C is a dynamic organisation. It’s not static, flat or monotonous. Like any organisation of humans, it evolves, grows and matures. Organic, fluid and alive, the Party would obviously not stay the same way it was two years ago.
7. Much of what I wrote two years ago, or whenever, still obtains, but two things have happened to me in my engagement with Guyana: I am learning to see human nature at work instead of hanging on to rigid expectations, and my own views and feelings of Government and the PPP/C are evolving and growing. In fact, I am starting to develop a love for the PPP/C and its role in our history and making of our nation.
8. The imperfections of human nature within the Government and ruling Party, as with the Opposition, cause me concern, but these are a work in progress. At least with the PPP/C, despite deep ongoing distrust and resentment towards ‘outsiders’ like myself from some leaders and rank and file members, I see open engagement, authentic effort to heal our historical wounds, and a vibrant awareness of the Party’s shortcomings, even if such awareness leads to little actual corrective action, maybe because the Party, like all Guyana, faces a shortage of skills and options of loyal, committed workers.
I would urge Mr. Bulkan to adopt an open, engaging, cooperative, collaborative stance as a respected leader in Guyana today, and to contribute his enormous business experience and knowledge to an unbiased, objective role as elder statesman and mentor and motivator.
My main concern for Guyana is our development as a global 21st century nation, not the quirks and weirdness of political animals and myopic minds. Those I ignore, seeking only to make a positive contribution. Mr. Bulkan would serve us well with such a mindset.
So what drives me to align myself with the Government of Guyana and the PPP/C?
That’s easy: it’s the open, engaging leadership style of President Ramotar, and the opportunity to actually make a contribution with my skills and talents to the future of my homeland, which the PPP/C, despite its many character flaws and human imperfections, accommodates with ease.

SHAUN MICHAEL SAMAROO