TO deny anything associated with President Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham can be controversial. Yesterday marked 32 years since he passed away.
The development of any nation is reliant on the intellectual growth and maturity of its citizens. Failure to rise to such level not only keeps that nation in perpetual backwardness, relitigating wars of eras where the players are no longer present to account for them, but also see a people divided and a world leaving them behind. President Burnham, depending on who is spoken to, is either good or bad. This simplistic binary absent shades and context, in the 21st century when he was of the 20th century, reflects our state of growth, or as some may say, not without some justification, the absence of.
To the extent where two-thirds of the nation’s population are being made to feel his contributions were that of alleged rigged elections, destruction of Guyana, food starvation, vendettas against political opponents and ethnic groups, not only make vengeful and simplistic those who are disposed to such discourse, but also reflecting personalities steep in refusing to move forward, even as the world has moved on. The cliché, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, is befitting the majority of discourses that characterise anti-Burnham sentiments, and how well this bodes for the country leaves not much for the imagination.

Guyana attained Independence (1966) and Republican status (1970) under the leadership of Forbes Burnham. These are two major attainments in the life of any society where its people seek after the inalienable right to self-determination. Where such attainments have been made under his watch, history has accordingly credited and duly recorded. Similarly, history will record those who have squandered the opportunities to deepen, strengthen, protect and defend what have been achieved. Our sense of patriotism and nationhood forged in those formative years saw among its policies and programmes to construct a nation’s frame, where freedom would be our everlasting goal, coverage and truth our aim.
This month as the people of the British Commonwealth celebrate 179 years of severing the yoke of bondage, how much as a nation have we, after 51 years of Independence and 47 as a Republic, can stake out the strides made in our political, economic, cultural, civil and social freedoms. The present generation has to engage in factual analyses of their contributions or absence thereof, to build on the gains of others. The foundation of this nation’s self-sufficiency, among which can be placed our indigenous identity, food, pride in ethnic diversity, foreign policy, manufacturing, education, housing, energy, sports, infrastructures, new frontiers and pursuit of worldwide comity, was laid by him. For some, admittedly, it should not have been, but to discredit, deprive or seek to deny these hurt not him, but those alive and future generations to come.

Where the drive for self-sufficiency became intensified as the response to the global threats of increasing oil prices, safeguarding territorial integrity, protecting the nation’s sovereignty in Cold War politics which impacted our foreign currency liquidity, necessitating shrewd and prudent politics to survive as a nation, that such became fodder for division and not unity is a matter for this present generation to resolve.
In the 21st century, it remains a sad admission that Guyanese are made to feel that the government’s Diversification Programme for the Guyana Sugar Corporation, where the future of sugar was the endangered target to hurt a particular ethnic group. Similar allegations have been made to added value for rice through by-products such as rice flour and cereal, when the trade agreement under which wheat was imported had expired. These responses to international impacts which also carried political underpinnings for the nation’s sovereignty, in the raging Cold War politics, created fertile ground not to band together in the face of external challenges, but to champion the politics of global destabilisation in countries who pursued the non-aligned path.

The rice flour industry is a thriving global business, considered a good substitute for wheaten flour, and given its gluten-free nature, healthier. Had Guyana stayed the course, it could have been a formidable competitor and be involved in the global push for healthy eating. The yearly Caribbean food import bill is approximately US$5 billion. Lots of these items can be produced here, attracting not only foreign revenue, but economic and employment opportunities for Guyanese.

Instead of developing the Grow More Food Programme, it became a causalty to partisan politics and it can only be surmised, based on exclusion from the market place, how much Guyana has been economically set back. When the survival of a country is dependent on external forces, it threatens the economic and political security of the nation and its people. That Guyana remains heavily import-reliant and continues to dump more than 20 percent of its fruits and ground provisions, this generation has only itself to blame for not building on the foundation laid, or accepting the propaganda that self-sufficiency was intended to impoverish them.