RICKFORDE Burke had reportedly suggested that people should run PPP leaders off the road. Ogunseye had reportedly advocated the violent removal of the government. Now, Kidackie Amsterdam is charged with complicity to advocate violence against the president and three ministers.

What motivates these violent exhortations? What are the contexts? What follows are brief notes about the movement of dialectics in Guyana and how the dialectics have assigned people like Burke, Ogunseye, Amsterdam to the dustbin of an era long, long, gone.

First, the motivation. Burke, Ogunseye, Amsterdam and Mark Benschop are driven by the pessimism of a disappearing world that has left them behind. These men are living in the past, in a period when they believe that African working-class folks and the lumpen proletariat would respond to the ringing of a bell to create mayhem, burn places and attack Indian people.

These extreme fringe elements are people who live is a desperation mode brought about specifically by the emergence of an oil economy that has essentially changed the economic landscape of Guyana. People like these four gentlemen and their acolytes know that the Guyana of poverty, desperation and hopelessness is gone. Where are you going to find youths with short-pants riding bicycles beating up people? Such a trend no longer exists.
The only alternative to this changing Guyana is to try to see if there is still room for creating instability. A second dimension of the element of motivation is narcissism. Burke, Ogunseye, Amsterdam and Benschop believe they are icons in the African world in Guyana and people will embrace them. This is a huge illusion.

Benschop, overflowing with narcissism, birthed a party for the 2015 general election and named it after himself. He got 112 votes. He left Guyana for permanent residence in the US soon after.
Ogunseye sees himself as an African liberator. In his mind, he believes he is a legend. Ogunseye operates in a narrow strip up the East Coast. Should Ogunseye announce a public meeting in Lodge, Den Amstel or South Ruimveldt, the only attendance would be him and David Hinds. After he was charged, not one protestor was outside the station or the court. Not one protestor followed the police vehicle he was in.

Now for the context. People of the type like these so-called activists are living with the yearnings of mo fyaah/slo fyaah and Buxton 2002-2005. Those were political moments that had their own dynamisms. Mo fyaah/slo fire was in 1997. The Buxton massacre ended in 2005. The dialectics have transformed both the political and economic fulcrums of Guyana.

Six factors explain why those moments were unusual and have long evaporated. Firstly, there is a rising, young African population that do not care to know about the era of post-election violence and the association of Black people with burning and beating people.

Secondly, the economy of Guyana has made tremendous strides in eradicating employment hopelessness for African youths in low-income areas. A motorcycle and smart phone that were dreams never to be realised in 1997 can now be easily bought by young men from low-income areas.

Thirdly, the transformed infrastructure of Guyana has presented African people with the image and reality that Guyana has come of age and is no longer a footnote on the Caribbean stage. African people see Guyana as the big showcase in the Caribbean and will not easily fall for violent propaganda by African leaders.

Fourthly, the type of politicians that fed on mo fyaah/slo fyaah and Buxton in 2002, have permanently disappeared. They have vanished from the political horizon. Those like Burke, Ogunseye, Benschop, Amsterdam, David Hinds are trying to replace them but it is a dialectical impossibility to recreate the Buxton of 2002.

Fifthly, Guyana in 2024 bears no resemblance to the Guyana of 1997 to 2005 when the violence in Georgetown and up the East Coast was destabilising. This is a country awash with shopping malls, entertainment places, endless supermarkets. African youths spend time enjoying the new Guyana and are not interested in what Ogunseye and Amsterdam have to say about attacking and harming ministers of the government.

Sixthly, the image of a country’s prime minister or president determines how the citizenry see its country and the leadership. Singlehandedly, Irfaan Ali has penetrated Guyana with the image of a down-to-earth leader who will visit you, listen to you and try to help you. It is impossible for the lunatic fringe to instigate hatred among Black Guyanese for such a leader. Ali comes across as a president that is unique, unusual and non-traditional. Black people in Guyana do not see Irfaan Ali as a threat to their well-being and in fact have taken a liking to him.