THIS is part 2 which began yesterday, Tuesday. We stopped at the creeping breakup between the Mulatto/Creole class (MCC) and the Forbes Burnham administration. A separate analysis will have to be published on why the divorce happened.
The MCC was never afraid of irritating Burnham or testing his patience as the mid-seventies approached and that was because of the MCC’s historic psychology. Despite the money of the Portuguese petite bourgeoisie (PPB) and the power of the colonial governor, the MCC was a formidable actor in British Guiana’s (BG) class structure. Simply put – the MCC ran things.
The MCC as a class in itself and as a class for itself behaved in the colony as if it were invincible. And it was. The PBB and the governor deferred to it. When Burnham and the MCC began to disagree on the direction of government as sugar money began to pour in and Burnham acquired more independence from the MCC, the MCC was not alarmed. The MCC was not afraid of Burnham. The MCC ran things in BG and independent Guyana, so it felt it could sustain a quarrel with Burnham.
But the MCC, familiar with the early PNC and knowing its players, did not really know Burnham. In the 1970s, Burnham brought to the surface what he sometimes but normally hid – his psychology of the Ubermensch. That is Nietzsche’s definition of the special, extraordinary leader.
There was no need for Burnham to manifest his Ubermensch mentality in the formation of the PPP in 1950 because there were too many competitors and he simply did not have the space or opportunity to display narcissist inclinations. His sister, Jesse Burnham warned the society in a publication that the man was obsessed with his special personality, but the MCC took no notice because for them Burnham was just an ordinary politician.
The power Burnham inherited from the demise of the United Force, the confidence the Americans reposed in him, and the saturation of sugar money provided the final opportunity for the revelation of the Ubermensch.

The MCC was caught off guard. Burnham was not prepared to share power with the MCC, not because he hated them, but because he wanted the political space for himself.
The MCC, armed with its historic invincibility, began to fight back. It invented the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) and confronted Burnham. It was a zero-sum clash. But the MCC felt it could win because it always won. A letter written in the newspaper by former PPP icon Ralph Ramkarran four years ago holds immense importance for Guyanese history.
Ramkarran explained that there was a permanent covenant (my words) between the WPA and PPP, of which he was one of the PPP’s representatives. The meeting place was GIMPEX on Regent Street. The WPA, separately, organised an urban resistance to topple Burnham in July 1979. When the PPP heard about this impending confrontation, it asked the WPA for details at one of the meetings at GIMPEX. Ramkarran noted that the WPA delegation simply told them that when it happened, the PPP will know.
That was stupid, ignorant, and asinine on the part of the WPA but it was in keeping with the psychology of the MCC after the descendants of the house-slaves inserted themselves in the administration of BG. The WPA felt it didn’t need the PPP because, as in the older days in BG, others needed the MCC, not the other way round, so it didn’t see the value of the PPP.
This revelation by Ramkarran has left a huge dent in the credibility of Walter Rodney. Because Rodney was such an immense figure of post-colonial liberation, historians continue to be kind to him. But he was part of that WPA’s decision in 1979 to shut out the assistance from the mass-based PPP because he subscribed to the MCC’s psychology that the Guyana middle class was too powerful for Burnham to resist and win.
The assassination of Rodney led to a long hibernation of the MCC. But objective analysis of the MCC would reveal that it was not decimated by Burnham. Power did remain with Burnham after the 1979 failure of resistance, and the WPA became vastly weakened. But the MCC defeated Burnham in a strange way that historians have to come to grips with.
Forbes Burnham was never the same psychologically after his sustained battle with the MCC and the WPA. Burnham was mentally drained. He could not and did not face the reality that the MCC fought him long and hard. Years after, he died a lonely man. Looked at from any angle, he won the battle but lost the war. In 2005, the MCC resuscitated itself and sought control of Guyana once more in the form of the Alliance For Change.
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.