I HAVE had the opportunity of listening to President Donald Ramotar on the election campaign trail and his Inauguration speech. Mr. President, I would like to suggest that what are at stake in the negotiating norms I have proposed are not simply the niceties of procedural form.

What is at stake is a realisation of how a genuinely democratic society has to function in practice, at the level of its political relations, operations and indeed at other levels, if we are to avoid a mindless regimentation on the one hand, or a senseless anarchy on the other.

Power in a modern society does not reside in any single source. In virtually every important context, if the underlying approach is simply an effort to determine who can wield greater countervailing power, who can threaten more or browbeat better or coerce more effectively, then the laws of nature – and the history of politics – suggest that sooner or later, the side with greater underlying strengths and better strategy will emerge ‘victorious’. Mr. President, both logic and history teach us – if we are disposed, that is, to learn – at the political level, most of such ‘victories’ are pyrrhic ones.
Politically, the ‘victor may simply find himself presiding over a sea of bitterness, a landscape from which morale is conspicuously absent and an overall condition in which human alienation is such a pervasive factor that the notions of greater laissez-faire become empty, meaningless slogans, wholly incapable of practical realisation, it does not take, Mr. President, either much intellect or much imagination, to work out likely political consequences of ‘victories of the kind I have described.
My view is that modern societies, especially those that wish to preserve some functioning model of democracy – as distinct from empty rhetoric about that much abused word – should diligently seek a better way of resolving serious differences, whether at the political or any other substantive level. This is especially true of developing countries like our own, beset with a multitude of fundamental economic problems which have not been solved – and will not be solved – merely by ideological posturing or high-flown phrases.
Ideology is important and words are important: on the first, I have already publicly declared myself as a social democrat on the left of that particular spectrum of political opinion; on the second, I endeavour to choose my own words carefully, conscious of the interpretations various individuals and groups may put upon them and of the potential good or harm they may do.
In essence, Mr. President, I am once more saying, in public, that for societies like Guyana, given our history, our traditions, the reality of our ethnic diversity, the somber and adverse nature of our economic condition, our acute political sensitivities and complexities – given all this – there is no viable alternative way forward other than the kind of dialogue I am advocating, for the resolution of important national and sectorial differences in this society.
If there is a viable alternative way forward, my view is that alternative must clearly be founded on a vision of the organisation of our society, which I feel will do violence, literally as well as metaphorically, to what is best and most enduring in our societal traditions.
I believe that a majority of the citizens of Guyana, if given an opportunity to express themselves freely on a choice between these two broad, alternative ways forward for our country would endorse the model which exalts dialogue and compromise and reject the model which must inevitably lead to violent confrontation and to pyrrhic victory. It is possible for societies like ours to survive such ‘victories’: But it is not, I submit to you Mr. President, possible after such ‘victories’, both to maintain democracy as well as to promote prosperity and it may turn out that in the pyrrhic victory model, neither democracy nor prosperity can be sustained and the so-called ‘victors’ would then simply inherit the worst of both worlds. As a society, we will have to choose which path forward we elect to pursue.
Mr. President, in speaking on behalf of workers, I want to raise some issues with a dual purpose in mind: first, to raise issues which have relevance to some of the problems which relate to modern trade unionism in general; and secondly, from a consideration of such relevant but general issues, to draw some morals and some tentative conclusions for trade unions like our own, moving and having our being in Guyana.
It will be necessary, Mr. President, for me to preface an examination of such issues as I wish raise with you, with a general philosophical premise. That necessity is founded on this basic proposition: that in essaying comment on a range of societal issues, some crucial and others important, it is, I think, essential to be clear as to what type of society we are assuming.
For that assumption critically determines the nature and form of possible models we can propose for analysis and debate and this is true whether the issue at stake is the role of the Opposition parties, or the role of the media or the role of the trade unions.
It is in that context Mr. President, that intellectual honesty compels me to preface my raising of issues relevant to trade unionism; with some brief comment on the underlying assumptions which flow from my concept of the basic kind of society I believe we should be trying to create in this country.
That concept and that vision are bound to inform the nature of the issues I choose to raise, as well as the way in which I seek to analyse them before putting them to you for your own decisions, individually and as President of the Republic of Guyana. There is no such thing as a concept or a vision of society which is free of ideology of some kind, of principles of some kind, of biases of some kind: what is important is that we declare, right at the very start, what that ideological stance is, what those principles are, what those biases seem to be, although the last-named will be evident to most persons once the first two are clearly stated.
Mr. President, on philosophical, analytical and evidential grounds, I reject both a laissez-faire capitalist model of society for Guyana, as well as a repressive, totalitarian one-party model. Our own history – as well as that of others – can inform us about the distortions, inequities and the inhibitions to production of the traditional laissez-faire model. We have no personal history of a full model of the other kind: but those with even a nodding acquaintance with international affairs would not have to search for convincing evidence of the essentially coercive nature, profoundly anti-libertarian indeed almost anti-human nature of full-scale totalitarian régimes, whether of the left or right; and of the profound economic and social liabilities which systems of that kind visit on societies which have the misfortune to have to endure them or of the immense human suffering and tragedies which inevitably result from the unchecked activities of the dominant elements in such societies
One of the worst aspects of totalitarian models is their inherent intolerance of dissent: this intolerance flows, in my view, partly from an insufferable arrogance on the part of the controlling authorities in such countries, which leads them to assume not only that they are in exclusive possession of the truth, but that such exclusivity is foreordained and eternal. And partly from fear, arising from a private realisation of the inadequacy of their stated positions, the vulnerability of those positions to rigorous analysis and examination, all leading to a basic unwillingness to discuss or debate even the premises, let alone the logical support of the policies adumbrated by the controlling authorities in totalitarian states.
My fundamental position, Mr. President, is diametrically opposed to either of the two basic models I have so far mentioned. I believe in an open, democratic society by which I mean one in which the legitimacy of the governing authorities clearly derives from the free, periodic, unfettered consent of all those ordinarily eligible for the exercise of the franchise: the era of kings and emperors with real power, that is or of self-proclaimed dictators is or ought to be over, especially in developing societies like ours.
I believe in a society where the broad mass of the people can be actively involved in the decisions which actually affect their lives, whether at work, in their unions or in their legislatures. I believe in a society which consciously tries to achieve the highest degree of congruence between justice and equity on the one hand – which I mean a sustained attack on poverty, ill health and other forms of backwardness or disadvantage, economic and social – and levels of freedom and tolerance on the other – in the sense of a strict observance of individual human rights and freedoms, including, especially, the freedoms of expression and association.
Mr. President, I am not as naive or unread as to assume that congruence of justice and freedom, of bread and liberty, is an easy one to achieve. On the contrary, I know quite well that it teems with practical difficulties. But the over-riding concern must be with a clear, unambiguous statement of belief, a declaration of intention – an open and continuing effort to move the society in those general directions.
The inexorable logic of this position means that anyone who holds it must be against the restriction of voluntary associations and entities pursuing agreed, non-subversive goals; against monopoly of the media by the controlling authorities in the society; against the infringement of normal, judicial process other than in clear, genuine emergencies, the genuinely of which is open to public scrutiny and comment and which is buttressed by convincing evidence, itself available for review. Mr. President, against that necessarily limited overview, is the vision of the kind of society which I am personally in favour of creating.
I was accused by the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC); it is conflict of interest because we a share difference of opinions. In my response to the GTUC, Abraham Lincoln said: “We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”

SHERWOOD CLARKE
General President
Clerical & Commercial Workers’ Union (CCWU)