COMBINED unity was pivotal for South Africa’s peaceful transition to freedom, culminating with Nelson Mandela as the first black president.  Some white Afrikaans, Jewish and most South African Indians all became united under the African National Congress (ANC) to topple the apartheid regime. The South African Communist Party (SACP) lead by Joe Slovo, a white South African was a highly trusted ANC ally. Commitment to unity came early in 1943  when the South African Indian Congress  (SAIC) led by Dr G. Monty Nackier, the Natal Indian Congress(NIC)  led by Dr Yusuf M.Dadoo and the ANC led by Dr A.B Xuma signed a pact called the Doctors Pact or Freedom Charter  uniting the ANC. That declaration of cooperation is today “seen as an epochal agreement that has played a major role in the liberation struggle. The pact set the scene for the Congress of the People (held in Kliptown, SA 25-26 June 1955) which adopted the Freedom Charter.’    Any surprise that prolonged unity was the key to South Africa’s freedom, unlike Guyana’s historical rivalries? What would have been the course of Guyana’s destiny if the original PPP had not become divided after 1953?  Buxton’s Mr. Eusi Kwayana never fails to remind who he supported when Mr. Forbes Burnham demanded to replace Dr Jagan as PPP leader.  But he made no commitment of pledged unity within the same PPP anywhere or thereafter.  Mr.  Kwayana  preferred equality in partition, but maintained a cordial relationship with the PPP.  His mission gained significant momentum by the mutual embrace of Black Power advocate Mr. Stokeley Carmichael’s 1970 visit to Guyana.

At Queen’s College, Carmichael proved to be an excellent public speaker, flashing his charismatic photogenic smile but with an incongruent southern American drawl.  He mesmerised the : “There can be no remission of sins without the shedding of blood.”  What did Black Power mean to Guyana anyway when the PNC was in government with mostly black officials wielding power everyday?  Carmichael completely alienated the Indo- Guyanese high school students. They spontaneously heckled and repeatedly booed him when he told them that Black Power did not include Indians.  “Get rid of your tie; you’re dressing like a white man” they mocked. “Ties come from the land” he shot back flashing his famous ear to ear grin.  He winked at the black students section at Queen’s College and repeated the infectious chant. The laughing and giggling chorus joined in.  Some walked out in disgust. “You are talking like an American or blackman! ”Someone shouted. It hit a sore spot. He explained he was born in Trinidad but grew up in America’s south.  Some among the mostly black students who remained were embarrassed. Carmichael winked and chanted and the chorus came alive, all over again.  He was in complete control and clearly enjoying it. “Black Power beyond Borders” by Nico Slate accurately reflected that visit.  “In Guyana, Carmichael declared that those of Indian descent and those of African descent, although united by poverty and a history of white oppression, needed to organise separately.”  Since he created the phrase “Black Power” he felt entitled to define it.

That evening, however, Mr. Kwayana’s ASCRIA feted Mr. Carmichael to a huge conkey and drumming Georgetown reception.  With the media reporting the Queen’s College events Carmichael ran into rowdier opposition the next day at UG.  Unfazed, Carmichael recommended Kwayana’s ASCRIA organisation, on his departure from Guyana, to anyone who accepted his ideas and wanted to pursue them. Now validated by a prominent black leader, Mr. Kwayana and ASCRIA became reborn. All Guyana’s backbiting politicians sharply contrasted to South Africa’s ANC with whites, Jews and Indians, all united.
Mr.  Ahmed Mohammed Kathrada, who became a dedicated friend of President Mandela was one of his Indian prison cell mates. “He spent 27 years in prison and I spent 26. But we were together for many of those years [and most of all, I remember] his leadership qualities.” Mr. Kathrada recommended Mr. Sathyandranath Ragunanan ‘Mac’ Maharaj, another Indian prisoner, as best capable of blackmailing guards for their needs e.g. newspapers. Mr. Maharaj became President Mandela’s spokesman and was reappointed by current President Jacob Zuma. He was a member of the ANC’s armed wing, Spear of the Nation.

Mr. Kathrada was an activist of South Africa’s Communist Party since his youth, but in 1992 he went to Saudi Arabia for hajj pilgrimage. He was influenced by leaders of the Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC) such as Dr Yusuf Dadoo, Ishmael C. Meer, Moulvi Cachalia, Yusuf Cachalia  and JN Singh.  During the defiance campaign where Madiba was national volunteer-in -chief,  Kathrada revealed “his deputy was Maulvi Cachalia, not Yusuf Cachalia… that was the beginning of their working closer together” . As old men he related how they would tease each other about their time in jail and their occasional disagreements.  Ms Kelly Ward, a Northeastern University student who met Mr. Kathrada, said that he was clearly devoted to Mandela. When one student asked him who else could have served as the leader of the South African anti-apartheid movement, he interrupted and answered that “there would not have been another.” “He didn’t even entertain the question,” Ms Ward said.

Obviously with dissension growing against the PNC in the 1970s, the chief beneficiary would have been Dr Jagan’s PPP.  But pursuant to Carmichael’s advice of separate development, Mr. Kwayana’s ASCRIA choose to merge with Dr Clive Thomas’s Ratoon group (which had invited and hosted Carmichael to Guyana) and an obscure IPRA lead by Moses Bhagwan to form the WPA in 1973.  Both Mr. Kwayana and Mr. Bhagwan were once PPP members. Separation rather than unity as “Civic” was not an option for them.  The WPA also professed admiration for socialism to which the PPP had openly been committed. Creation of the WPA however ensured they siphoned off PNC black dissenters, building “black socialism” rather than rejoining Dr Jagan’s PPP which the Afro-centric Mr. Kwayana detested as too Indian, therefore not acceptable. Re-uniting Guyanese was sacrificed again.
When Dr Walter Rodney returned to Guyana he was quickly made WPA leader.  However, Dr Rodney met and reportedly made a secret agreement with Dr Jagan’s PPP to re-unite Guyanese again in the PPP as in 1953. Why the most politically experienced Mr. Kwayana failed to persuade Dr Rodney to desist from any arms buildup for a violent solution still remains a mystery. Dr Rodney was promptly assassinated by the PNC.  Conceivably some in the WPA secretly wanted his martyrdom as a cause célèbre but preferred the PNC to remove him and get blamed. With Dr Rodney eliminated the WPA quickly fell apart after elections. Its skeleton remnants with Dr Rupert Roopnaraine’s as affixed head finally has completely been reabsorbed into the PNC/APNU.

Now contrast the lunacy of political mistakes in Guyana with the unity in South Africa and Guyanese can understand why we became divided. What’s the solution?
 
SULTAN MOHAMED