I CAN say with expanding definitiveness that the people who read me know that my belief in public debate in Guyana is that we have a nationalist duty to confront narratives, and engage in polemics to stop minds from being subliminally influenced by epistemological and philosophical contortions, political fictionalization, and historical distortions.

You may not stop the subliminal process at work for all the victims, but some victims’ eyes would definitely be opened, and even if it is one human, then at least one human acquires an insight into the nature of a country named Guyana. I chose to discuss yesterday (Thursday)’s commentary by Dr. Bertrand Ramcharran, because, while I think some opinion-makers have no influence in the episodic missives they produce in the newspapers, others like Ramcharran can have an effect on readers.

In his piece yesterday, Dr. Ramcharran offers an illuminating panegyric of the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA), past and present. But when a revisionist torchlight is shone upon the GHRA, the illumination dies as when a sweeping breeze extinguishes a candle flame; those dying flames light up the huge gaps in Ramcharran’s understanding of Guyana.
Columns consist of normative judgements, so I will ask you to read the analysis in my next paragraph. The very words of Ramcharran are, and I quote: “The GHRA’s actions and assessments might be open to discussion at times; such as the allegation that it did not react to the electoral rigging in 2020.”

This is a tremendously gargantuan indictment of the GHRA for which this nation should not forget and forgave the GHRA. Dr. Ramcharran is a trained lawyer in international law, and held a high position on the UN Commission for Human Rights.
He has to know that the raison d’être for the GHRA dying was when it did not react to the ugly, blatant, illegal and demoralising denial of 115, 000 Guyanese citizens their right to have their vote counted in 2020. The Chief Elections Officer swiped off those 115,000 votes from the Statements of Poll, and declared the election result in favour of the APNU+AFC. The non-reaction of the GHRA to the conspiracies to engender permanent power in Guyana disqualifies it from having moral existence in this country.

But let us offer more quotes from Ramcharran to prove his insensitivity to human rights violations. I quote him again: “It was constitutional and electoral reforms that led to the formation of the GHRA in 1979.” But what did the GHRA do to those 1990 electoral reforms that led to free elections in 1992, and from thereon Guyana joining the global family of democratic nations where people could vote for those they want to govern their country?

Electoral reforms in 1990, and free election in 1992 stopped permanent power in Guyana. It was permanent power that was responsible for the 1974 denial of a teaching job at UG for Walter Rodney. It was permanent power in 1989 that led to the cruelest national budget in Guyana’s history. Permanent power died in 1992, and since then, Guyanese voted in political parties, and voted them out.

In March 2020, attempts were made to resuscitate permanent power. If the world did not decisively intervene and extirpate the conspiracies to remove free and fair elections from Guyana, then one party named APNU+AFC would have ruled Guyana indefinitely.
For an organisation that participated in the achievements of electoral reform, the GHRA turned its back on its own legacy, and played no small part in generating a political ambience that would have seen the rebirth of Guyana’s Faustian journey of soulful self-destruction.

There are several aspects of undiluted mediocrity in yesterday’s commentary that must be confronted, like his exclamation that he cannot think of another entity in Guyana that has made a more valuable contribution to Guyana than the GHRA. This is really irrational stuff from Dr. Ramcharran. I will discuss more aspects of his column, but I close with a statement I will make below, for which I will remain unapologetic.
Dr. Ramcharran cannot do, or does not want to do a class analysis of Guyana.
Class analysis is an indispensible methodology for understanding the sociology and economics of a country. Class analysis showed why the Democrats in the US lost the Senate, House and presidency.

The GHRA did not come out against the 2020 attempted election rigging for reasons of class and colour. I will keep writing on this topic. The Mulatto/Creole Class (MCC) thought that in 2015, Indian leadership in Guyana was over. The MCC has not recovered from the election defeat of APNU+AFC, and, since August 2020, has embarked on an anti-government campaign of which the GHRA is a part.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.