Guyanese finally know where those who use the language of power sharing really stand. For years David Hinds and friends have called for reconciliation, dialogue, understanding, reaching-out and all of the things that make for forward movement. Now that the people on the ground in the village of Buxton have embarked on such a path, Hinds has come out flatly against accommodation. Hinds’ tirade against some of the community leaders in Buxton has been occasioned by President Jagdeo’s visit to the village. He is mortified that, against all his predictions, that the people of Buxton welcomed the president and his team with open arms. As I stated in a recent article, positive developments in Guyana make those dedicated only to opposition for the sake of opposition very sad.
David Hinds is a member of the WPA, a group that has absolutely no following in Guyana. Yet, the same group has the audacity to make all kinds of demands on the PPPC and the PNCR. The unconscionable demands have now been expanded. Now Hinds wants the people of Buxton to go backward rather forward. Now he wants a few overseas WPA people to tell the people of Buxton what to do. Those demands have been forcefully rejected.
The leaders and people of Buxton have shown great courage by walking away from those who are stuck in the past. This historic village has now taken a bold step forward, and the few manufacturers of discord have been left behind.
Subaltern historians and social theorists have produced a huge body of literature demonstrating the inherent common sense of local leadership. One can think of E.P. Thompson’s epic – The Making of the English Working Class; of Walter Rodney’s writings on Jamaica and Guyana; or of the massive historical productions of the Indian subaltern school. The gist of this subaltern historiography is that locally grounded knowledge is the most authentic basis for praxis.
President Jagdeo made two statements recently that are worth repeating. The first one is counter-intuitive.  While commissioning a water treatment plant at Cotton Tree, Berbice, the president said he and the cabinet are impatient about development. The message is that economic and social development is always urgent, always something in the making. The completion on one project should be seen as only the starting point of another.
The second statement was made at the opening ceremony of Building Expo recently held at the Providence Stadium. On that occasion President Jagdeo said that development goes beyond bricks and mortar, beyond the hardware of infrastructure. It is rather about building dreams and realizing them. Those dreams belong to all Guyanese, and the people of Buxton are no exception.
The villagers of Buxton and visitors to that community can see the bricks and mortar as roads and bridges go up. What is happening there is deeper and more enduring. We are witnessing nothing less than the renaissance of this historic village. A great partnership has begun.
Make no mistake about what the career hardliners will say and do. They will attack this partnership. They will call the local leaders all kinds of names. They will manufacture narratives and images of betrayal. They will fret and cuss. They will dig up the past and infuse in it cocktails of emotionalism. They will do all of this in order to arrest progress, in order to bludgeon national unity, in order to maintain their status within the community of hardliners.
What we do know is this – Buxton and Buxtonians are on the move, and the hardliners will not be able to stop them.