YOU could be a genius, yet you would be unable to write about the life of Rupert Roopnaraine (RR) in even two columns. I am in two minds about whether to describe his politics as complex or simple to understand. Maybe it was both. They say when people die, you should not write bad things about them. But that advice should never be applied to historians, because if historians do not write, there will be no history; thus, there will be no past to learn from.
RR always reminds me of a saying I heard millions of times in my life. People would say they never understood how Guyanese East Indians gravitated toward Cheddi Jagan because Indians’ choice is business, and Jagan believed in socialism. In a similar context, I never understood how RR was so attractive to revolutionary youths and how RR was so saturated with Mulatto/Creole culture and was a serious practitioner of that culture.
I don’t believe anyone in the Caribbean region had a longer reach in the shaping of oratorical deliveries than RR. He was simply incredible in the use of the English Language. The consensus was that Burnham was the best. I don’t think so. RR was the best, but Burnham had one thing over RR, that was because Burnham was more grounded in the community of people than RR.
Burnham could use the English Language in a repartee style that RR was incapable of. Burnham still remains at numero uno in that regard. It is easy to understand why RR had a more brilliant oratorical sheen than Burnham’s; his area of scholarship was literature. His doctoral thesis was on Dickens.
The contradictions in the life of RR were literally unlimited; thus, his life story is truly an absorbing one. I would say that of all the politicians I knew (and as a dinosaur, I knew nuff, nuff of them), RR had more contradictions than all of them. Every politician has his/her contradiction and for God’s sake, Guyanese politicians top the list in the world, but RR embodied more of it than others.
So to write about these contradictions will take several columns, so I will begin with the positive. But before I do that, one huge lamentation has to be mentioned: RR has died without leaving any written material on three priceless areas that have made Guyana’s historiography poorer. 1. His analysis of the Burnham regime and the WPA’s effort to remove him. 2- His thoughts on the long presence of the PPP in the biology of Guyana. 3- His reflections on the nature of the five years of his party, APNU, in power
Had Roopnaraine put pen to paper on those three areas of Guyana’s life, it would have become one of the best political books written on Guyana, because RR had a command of the English Language that none before him had, and during his time on earth, he did. The loss in print form of those thoughts on Guyana is a monumental hole that will always remain.
Rupert Roopnaraine was one of the greatest intellectuals Guyana and the Caribbean produced. It gets me mad, real mad, to read that Janet Bulkan can write that Anand Persaud of Stabroek News was the most consequential person Guyana has produced from the late 20th century to the moment. It gets me outrageously upset to read that Nigel Westmaas can write that Martin Carter was Guyana’s deepest thinker. This is unforgivable heresy when you think of the phenomenal intellectual reach of Rupert Ropnaraine. Seriously, these two persons have never heard about Roopnaraine.
On the positive side, I believe that together with Rodney and before them, Cheddi Jagan, he shaped the consciousness of the Guyanese people at a time when that consciousness needed to be nurtured — the immediate post-colonial moment. If you want to see how one human can get up on a podium and instill consciousness in his audience, you had to hear and see RR on the political platform.
They say Rodney was the WPA and the WPA was Rodney, but Rodney in activism in Guyana could not have been Rodney without RR at his side. Rodney and the WPA could not have been successful in the 1970s without RR in the mix of things. That was the value of his presence.
He could move an audience in ways that I think equal that of Jagan, Burnham, and Rodney. It is no exaggeration to say that the most captivating, electrifying politician on a platform in front of a crowd in Guyana’s history was Rupert Roopnaraine. One of the unpublished nuances of the Rodney years before his death is that Rodney brought the masses to the WPA; RR brought the middle class and their resources to the WPA. Unlike what people may think, they both complemented each other. Part 2 is forthcoming.
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.