THIS past week I had the rare distinction or non-distinction of being simultaneously described by former president Donald Ramotar as a “PPP hater” and “PNC Lover” and by many PNC supporters as a “Burnham basher,” who is out to soil the good name of the former president and his party. Both sides were responding to the same comments I made in relation to the history of State violence in Guyana. I have long known that when it comes to politics, Guyanese generally read and see the same things very differently. This is what the fusion of party politics and ethnicity does to the psyche of a country.
I have long come to the conclusion that there is a hard-core segment of Guyanese society, predominantly African-Guyanese, that would never under any circumstances come to grips with the fact that the PNC and its founder-leader, Mr Forbes Burnham, committed excesses when they occupied the seat of government. The debate over the Rodney CoI Report has reconfirmed this feeling. This same segment of the population would give the party and the leader every credit for every positive development, small and large, that occurred in Guyana between 1964 and 1992. The leader gets credit for every positive thing, but is denied the same for the negatives. In fact, many would deny that any negative developments occurred during that period. We know that that is not humanly possible, but in our pursuit of hero-worship, we silence reason.
That kind of popular political instinct comes from a particular place. It is both a response to and defence against a similar instinct that resides on the other side of the political divide. Dr Jagan and the PPP are constantly constructed by a mainly Indian-Guyanese segment as incorruptible, saintly and devoid of any political immorality. The party and the leader are presented as the opposite of the deeply flawed Burnham-PNC.
As President Ramotar puts it when asked about State Violence under the PPP: “I want to make it clear that the PPP was never involved in any State violence and had nothing to gain from that. Crum-Ewing and McKinnon did not threaten us. None of them threatened the PPP politically. And that is not how we operate…we have always believed in the strength of our arguments and Hinds by his comments has degenerated into a PPP hater who wants to divert attention from the Rodney report and start sharing blame as if both parties are guilty of State violence, which is utter nonsense. He has now become a PNC lover. And therefore to make them look good he has to cast aspersions upon the PPP.” (Kaieteur News February 29).
At one level the former president could not possibly believe what he said, but at another level he has to believe it. To not do so is to condemn himself and by extension his party and the governments they had formed, and self-condemnation is one of the hardest things for human beings to do. The PPP has to create haters and lovers in order to maintain its narrative—they point out what happened under our watch, not because it happened at all, but because they hate us. And if they hate us, they must logically love our rivals.
This PPP-type of narrative comes from the same place of defence against and response to the other side. Over time it becomes political culture and instinct—political truth. Successive generations sip the brew and become intoxicated. But who can blame them? If you are African- Guyanese of a certain age, you remember the excesses of the 1957-64 PPP government and you form your notion of government by the other side. It is the same if you are Indian-Guyanese of a certain age who lived through the 1964-92 period and African-Guyanese who lived through the 1992-2015 era.
This narrative of self and the other is deeply embedded in our political psyche. It varies in its intensity within the respective groups, but it’s there. It gets very crazy at times. We divide the Government and State between theirs and ours. Theirs are bad and ours are good—good versus evil.
Speaking of Rodney, his greatest sin in the eyes of those who are wedded to the African- Guyanese narrative, is that he, an African, opposed an African government. The anti-Rodney narrative in the African-Guyanese community fuses three sometimes contradictory elements. First, the Comrade Leader had nothing to do with his demise. Second, he was wrong to oppose his fellow Black leader.
Why Rodney couldn’t work with Burnham rather than opposing him, they ask. They conveniently forget that one segment of Rodney’s party, ASCRIA and Kwayana, worked closely with Burnham during the years 1964-71 and that that relationship ended over ASCRIA’s perception that the government and State were becoming authoritarian. The point is that by the time Rodney arrived in 1974, the government had already gone astray. And what is also forgotten is that thousands of African-Guyanese joined Rodney’s resistance against the very government they voted for. Guyana’s politics are not as simplistic as the dual-narrative suggests.
As an African-Guyanese, I am pleading with the African-Guyanese community not to descend to the point of justifying Government and State violence. As a people who have for 400 years been victims of extreme forms of State Violence and still are, we have to set an example to others both in terms of our conduct in government and in our outrage against official violence. We have to value all lives, including the lives of those opposed to our views.
We Africans are a diverse people and have always generated diverse ideas—it is one of our beauties. And if we have not learned by now how to treat with that diversity of thought and action without resort to mindless violence, we will be forever doomed. Let us learn to love our idols without hating their rivals. There has to be a way to praise Burnham’s virtues without denigrating Rodney.
And there has to be a way to look our past, the good and the not-so-good aspects of it, straight in the eye and acknowledge both our beauty and our ugliness. The ultimate test of humanity is our ability to be human even in the face of adversity. Many are asking for us to move on, but we cannot move on in denial; we have to be honest with ourselves.
We can learn from our poetic voice, Martin Carter, who penned the following thought— I turn to the histories of men and the lives of peoples/ I examine the shower of sparks the wealth of the dreams./I am pleased with the glories and sad with the sorrows /rich with the riches, poor with the loss./From the nigger yard of yesterday, I come with my burdens/ To the world of tomorrow I turn with my strength.
I am also calling on our political leaders to do better. Now is the time for visionary leadership. The role of the leader is not only to run a government, but to be a source of reason. As political leaders we have to find a way to quarrel less and reason more. Difference is normal, but when we attach bad meaning to difference it becomes dangerous. Guyana has to learn quickly how to deal with differences in our politics. Our leaders have to set the example and if they do, our society would be a healthier place
More of Dr. Hinds ‘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