Hinds ‘Sight with Dr. David Hinds
Dr. David Hinds
Dr. David Hinds

Burnham is still difficult for Guyana as a whole to digest

YESTERDAY, August 6, marked the 31st anniversary of the death of Forbes Burnham, former president of Guyana. In the coming days, his party — the PNC — and his admirers would remember him; his vision for Guyana, and his stature as one of our foremost political leaders would be repeated. But it would be one of those uncomfortable moments for the country. In fact, most of the country would go about its business as if nothing significant is happening.Only two months ago, we witnessed the same scenario when Walter Rodney’s followers remembered him on the 36 anniversary of his death.

Here are two significant leaders whose legacies have become victims of our deadly politics. In normal circumstances and in different times, the entire country would be remembering Burnham. You just have to listen to older African Guyanese talk about him and you get the impression that there was something godly about him. He is their political hero in a country where each ethnic group creates and celebrates its own hero. To those people, Burnham is not fiction; he is flesh and blood, and the embodiment of their independence dream.

But to the other large ethnic group, Burnham is evil; he is their independence nightmare. Everything wrong about Guyana is blamed on him. Just the other day, former president Bharrat Jagdeo invoked Burnham to drive home to Indian Guyanese how dangerous the present Government is. The Indian Guyanese narrative of the evil Burnham has been kept alive by the PPP, and has been used effectively in their persistent quest to hold on to the political loyalty of that group.

There is a third narrative about Burnham; one that recognizes both his positives and shortcomings, even if the latter rises to the surface more often than the former.

Against this background, Burnham becomes difficult for Guyana as a whole to digest. In many respects, he, more than the other leaders, embodies the complexity and contradictions of post-plantation Guyana. To better understand what Burnham represents, one has to grapple with him both in his totality and in parts; at least that has worked for me.

There is something in the nature of Guyanese society and politics that stands in the way of a dispassionate response to Burnham. The Trinidadians, to my mind, have done a better job at constructing an Eric Williams that is minimally accepted by all ethnic groups there. I doubt that Guyana can get to that point anytime soon; the wounds are too deep and too raw.

What I wrote last year about Burnham is worth repeating:

Our new post-colonial leaders were therefore granted enormous powers by an inherited political system that was created for kings and conceived to dominate. In addition, since they were the ones who had led the children out of bondage, their followers were less vigilant and more accommodating of their political frailties. It is no accident, then, that the leadership in Guyana, the rest of the Caribbean, Africa and Asia succumbed to the authoritarian trappings of power. In the end, political power was personalized and became absolute. This is a crucial aspect of the making of a Forbes Burnham, a Cheddi Jagan, an Eric Williams and an Eric Gairy.

Yet, these were men who were deeply invested in doing something to lift the lot of their people; they were acutely aware of the scourge of poverty and marginalization. In Burnham’s case, the fact that he was dark-skinned in a world of privileged white and brown made him even more sensitive to the reality of the social bottom. These concerns would be reflected in some of the policies he enacted, and in the general socio-economic thrust he championed. Redistribution of wealth as a means of lifting the powerless was a central part of his praxis.

In addition to the above, Burnham and his generation were nationalists. Burnham’s fostering of Guyanese, Caribbean, Pan-African and Third World nationalisms was peerless. In the process, he brought a sense of national dignity to Guyana.

Burnham, then, was a paradox: the visionary defender of the poor and the nation, but one who succumbed to the lure of authoritarian rule. But the Burnham paradox is a Guyanese and Caribbean paradox that must be worked through and properly explained. We do Burnham and ourselves a disservice by succumbing to the good-versus-evil paradigm. In the end, we sink deeper into the dangerous politics of them-versus-us.

Dr. David Hinds, a political activist and commentator, is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Caribbean and African Diaspora Studies at Arizona State University. More of his writings and commentaries can be found on his YouTube Channel Hinds’ Sight: Dr. David Hinds’ Guyana-Caribbean Politics, and on his website www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com. Send comments to dhinds6106@aol.com

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