IN human history, various forms of government have been used – monarchies,  benevolent despotisms,  dictatorships of many kinds and many names and so on.  The form of government which has been found to be the most efficacious and the one which ordinary folk like the best is democracy.  Democracy first grew up in the cities of Ancient Greece and was linked with the creation of the brilliant Greek culture, which was seminal to western civilisation.  The democratic form of government has won for itself worldwide acceptance and its promotion by the United Nations is testimony to this. Every year on September 15, the Day of Democracy is celebrated worldwide under the auspices of the UN and its theme this year is, “Strengthening democratic resilience in the face of future crises.”

The main characteristics of democracy are that it protects human rights;  the rights of minorities of every kind are protected;  religious freedom is guaranteed, and there is steady and sustained social and economic development.  It always strives for International peace and harmony.  The main elements of democracy- respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms;  freedom of association;  freedom of expression and opinion;  access to power and its exercise in accordance with rule of law;  holding of periodic free and fair elections by universal suffrage and by secret ballot as the expression of the will of the people;  a pluralistic system of political parties and organisations;  the separation of powers – the Judiciary, Legislature and Executive;  the independence of the Judiciary;  transparency and accountability in public administration;  and a free, independent and pluralistic media.

Guyanese are quite aware of the meaning of democracy and have always aspired to achieve it, but it has always eluded them and Guyana in this regard compares very unfavourably with the other Anglophone Caribbean countries.  This difference is caused by the unfortunate injection of race and racism into Guyanese politics by external forces.

In the 1950s, Britain had decided to withdraw from her West Indian colonies and grant them independence.  To do this, she had to arrange for them to have national constitutions, parliaments, elections and nurture political parties and corps of politicians to whom power could be handed.  These politicians had to compete to be elected to parliament. In Guyana, they found that they could more easily mobilise support by invoking racial affiliation than  by presenting reasoned policies and programmes to the electorate. By so doing, they introduced an adversarial element into race relations, replacing the harmonious tolerance which had always characterised Guyana and the colonial administration merely went along with it and did nothing to correct it.

At this time, the Cold War between the West, led by the USA who represented the free market and the Soviet Union, which represented communism was raging worldwide and Guyana was sucked into it because the American CIA felt that Dr C.B. Jagan would win the elections in the newly independent Guyana and as Prime Minister would take Guyana into the Soviet camp as had happened with Cuba.  In fragmenting the electorate to foil any attempt to take Guyana into the Soviet bloc, the CIA stimulated racism and, in particular, engineered and exacerbated racial hatreds between Africans and Indians, using all the expert methodologies resulting in communal violence with loss of scores of lives, a phenomenon which had never before occurred in Guyanese history.  A number of Guyanese in various areas of life, including government, opposition,the private sector and  trade unions, had been subverted and assisted the CIA to achieve their aims.  The British, however, went ahead and granted independence to a racially fractured and chaotic Guyana.

In the 1980s the West had won the Cold War and had destroyed the Soviet state and the mechanisms which had been used to stimulate racial animosities were  dismantled or allowed to decay.  Demographic and other social changes had occurred in Guyanese society over the last four or five decades which made it impossible to win elections by appeals for racial support.  The policy of the West had also changed into being committed to establishing democratic governments in the whole of the Americas for the simple reason that democratic governments would be more affiliated to themselves and would be easier  to relate to.   No one could now profit from racism and racial discord  or chaos.

The 21st century has therefore ushered in  the birth of a new Guyana: Racism is fast passing away and democracy is taking deeper roots and becoming stronger.  Politics in Guyana would soon resemble any Western Democracy.  The anachronistic survivors of the past who still cry ‘Race!’ and who have harebrained proposals that the main political parties should form their own cabal and split the spoils of country above the heads of the electorate are becoming irrelevant and are imperceptibly fading away, allowing the gradual emergence of a younger and more creative group.