Dear Editor
Recently, in the course of conversation with an Afro-Guyanese former colleague, he posed this question, “Is the PPP/C a victim of its own success?” Impulsively, I scanned mentally for a rational explanation but, for some unknown reason, remained silent, unsure of how to answer or engage in a prolonged conversation of claims and counterclaims. Upon gathering my thoughts, I asked my former colleague – who has achieved financial success since living in the U.S – why he asked such a question. Instead of explaining why, he remarked that had he not migrated, he doubts whether he would have had the opportunity to achieve the level of financial success in spite of the “oil money currently flowing” into Guyana.

For many Guyanese residing abroad, and in Guyana, the income accrued from oil should have already improved the lives of everyone within the country. What is problematic with such expectations is that a country’s economic success does not manifest itself overnight, or in just a few years. Economic/developmental success is a gradual process; hence it often seems prolonged. Days later, this truism led me to probe for an answer to my former colleague’s question. My examination revealed the following.

Despite completed, and current improvements underway in Guyana, opposition forces and their supporters constantly target daily criticisms, accusations, and condemnations against the PPP/C government, falsifying claims regarding the acquisition and utilisation of oil revenues. Led by individuals seeking political supremacy, opposition forces constantly refine their practices of deception, peddling racist propaganda of divisiveness and disunity – all aimed at discrediting the PPP/C government and undermining its growing popular support.

Given Guyana’s culturally pluralistic citizenry, it is not difficult for opposition leaders to exploit the racial/ethnic divide by instilling fear and distrust for the PPP/C government. As such, it is presumptuous to assume that the simple promulgation of political policies, or impartial governmental actions would eradicate racial and ethnic differences, and result in the formation of a homogeneous Guyana. Such social-cultural homogenisation becomes all the more problematic since opposition leaders, in their fierce pursuit of relevance, seldom hesitate in inventing relations of racial and ethnic discord and strife where none exits. The opposition’s fear is that if the PPP/C succeeds in bringing about some semblance of racial and ethnic unity, their relevance and usefulness would be greatly diminished. So, the opposition’s goal is to ensure that races in Guyana remain detached and distrustful of each other.

Guyanese are aware that the country’s population cannot be oxidized into constituting a racial neutrality. Under various PNC administrations, decades of racial politics served as the instrument that militated against the formation of a Guyanese unity, a divisive force in the building a harmonious multicultural and racially pluralistic society. Yet, evidenced today, is that the current PPP/C government has embraced racial and ethnic plurality in its national humanistic policy agenda, and developmental initiatives – principles of governance that are fracturing the political, cultural, and psychological barriers of racism erected and promoted by the PNC over three decades of autocratic dominance.

Through the promotion and articulation of a Guyanese humanistic Nationalism that targets and distributes services equitably to all races and ethnicities, the PPP/C’s polices have generated enormous insecurities among opposition racist promoters as evidenced in their incessant strife-ridden clamour for political supremacy. As if suffering from a serious case of social amnesia, promoters of racism hurl attacks daily on President Irfaan Ali and Vice President Jagdeo in their petulant attempts to distort, falsify, and obfuscate the PPP/C’s enormous progress towards the social and economic upliftment of all races and ethnicities within Guyana.

It is this PPP/C’s dedication to the construction of a national humanistic Guyanese unity of all races and ethnicities that will hasten the crumbling of racial/ethnic walls of political and economic indifferences, while contributing to mutual societal relations of interdependence and harmony.

Today, Guyanese of every racial and ethnic persuasion should be alert to the political hypnosis of racism. They should also be cautious of subscribing to opposition politicians’ tactics and reformulations of racial political banditry that regularly appeal to, and influence aggressive actions, that fray and undermine the very fabric of humane harmonious existence. The boundlessness of racist politicians’ insatiable lust for power that threatens the promotion and formation of a national humanist Guyanese identity cannot be dismissed, or feebly confronted. It must be challenged and discredited.

The foregoing leads me to posit that it is the PPP/C’s government recognition of past racist atrocities, and its efforts to formalize a Guyanese Nationalism into a humane societal unity -through the social regulation of political differences – has led to its victimization by opposition leaders who callously disregard the truth in their quests for political supremacy. To this, my former Afro-Guyanese colleague assented.

Regards,
Narayan Persaud, PhD
Professor Emeritus