CHEDDI Jagan stands tall among the great men of history. He is widely regarded as the Father of the Nation for his life-long struggle for the cause of a free, democratic, prosperous and dignified Guyana. In recognition of his sterling contribution to the country, he was awarded the country’s highest award, the Order of Liberation (OR). At a historic sitting of Parliament on December 2007, a motion was moved to pay tribute to Dr Jagan for his contribution to a free and democratic Guyana. The motion gained the unanimous support of both sides of the House, an indication of the high regard in which he was held across the political spectrum. The motion facilitated the posthumous award of the Order of Liberation of Guyana, a fitting tribute to a tireless fighter and great son of the soil, Dr Cheddi Jagan.

The Order of Liberation is the foremost national award that can be presented upon any individual, who by a lifetime of honourable achievements, bestowed one’s life on the improvement of his fellow humankind. It is the most prestigious decoration for mention or other service beyond the normal call of duty than any country can present. As a high token, it ranks above the Order of Excellence (OE) and the Arrow of Achievement. He was awarded several other awards, but it was ‘service to people as a duty and not for reward’ that was the defining characteristic throughout his mortal existence. Together with his wife Janet, they gave over 100 years of service at the highest national level, an extraordinary feat by any standard.

That quality is what separates great men from lesser mortals; that ability to subsume their own individual interests for the greater good of society and both Dr Jagan and his wife Janet had been exemplary in that regard.

As we move further away from Dr Jagan’s passing, the more relevant are his thinking and ideas in contemporary society. Twenty-five years may not be that long in the bigger historical sweep, but it is certainly long enough for us to do some analysis on his visionary thinking and its relevance to present-day society.

There are some who seek to project a view that Dr Jagan was so consumed with ‘international communism’ that he failed to appreciate the geo-political realities of that period and the destabilising impact that could have on the then colony of British Guiana. And while it is true that his PPP administration was deposed by foreign vested interests in the elections of 1953, the first democratic elections under universal adult suffrage which the PPP won by a landslide; and again in 1964 through an imposed system of proportional representation, those unfortunate episodes did not in any way take away from the fact that Dr Jagan and the PPP which he co-founded was essentially democratic and never sought to obtain power other than through democratic means. Indeed, the PPP has the distinction of being the first political party in the western hemisphere where a ‘leftist’ party obtained political power through constitutional means.

Regarding allegations peddled by some western powers of Dr Jagan seeking to create a ‘second Cuba’ in the western hemisphere, nothing could be further from the truth. The PPP had always, from the very inception, embraced a policy of political and ideological pluralism and in fact was very instrumental in laying the foundation for the business sector to grow and flourish. Indeed, following the historic victory of the PPP/C on October 5, 1992, Dr Jagan who became the first democratically elected Executive President embraced an economic policy of the private sector as ‘the engine of growth.’

Dr Jagan was misunderstood by western powers, which turned a blind eye to electoral fraud in Guyana under the Burnham regime under the mistaken view that the PNC was ‘the lesser of the two evils.’ That turned out to be a monumental mistake as the country was reduced to the poorest country in the western hemisphere under an undemocratic and authoritarian PNC regime. Arthur Schlesinger, whose book ‘ A Thousand Days in the White House’ and who captured the Kennedy-Jagan encounter in the White House had this to say later: ‘We misunderstood the whole struggle down there. He wasn’t a Communist. The British thought we were over-reacting and indeed we were. The CIA decided that this was some great menace, and they got the bit between their teeth. But even if British Guiana had gone Communist, it’s hard to see how it would be a threat.’

Dr Jagan has been vindicated by history and his ideas still continue to have a liberating effect on people all across the globe. His vision for a new global human order, for debt relief; for aid without strings and fair trade; his advocacy for disarmament and world peace; for demilitarisation and for social and economic justice continue to resonate with people all over the world.

More significantly, his vision of a democratic, prosperous and socially just Guyana continue to influence the thinking of the PPP/C administration as is being reflected in the programmes and policies of successive PPP/C administrations, where the emphasis is on human development within the overarching framework of ‘development with a human face.’