THE mind has a way of imprisoning some memories, which strangely it doesn’t store in the ID, but they remain on the surface of the EGO. The mind is conscious of the surface existence of these memories and in an instant, the derivatives of these memories come easily from the EGO.
I cannot remember 99 per cent of the names of fellow students I interacted with during my days at the University of Toronto, except my friends, of course. But one student will always be in my memory, though I may have spoken to her only twice. I recall her name easily – Nirvana Christsanti. She was Italian.
We had an exchange on racism in White so-called democratic countries and since she was a devout Catholic, I asked her how God could allow racism to exist. I will never forget what she told me. She said God doesn’t dislike African people. He just accepts that they are not equal to White people.
I have another memory that will forever remain at the top of my EGO. I was about 12 years old when my sister brought home a young girl. She met her at the Georgetown Hospital in a despondent mood. Her baby son had just died. She was an extremely poor girl from Leguan and although we slept on the floor because there were seven of us, she joined us.
I remember most vividly one evening, her brother from Cato, in the interior, came to our home to visit her. This man brought a couple of onions that he had grown himself. My parents and all of us looked at the onions in disbelief. How could Guyana grow this and we import onions from abroad? I am in my seventies, so imagine how long ago that was. But a few weeks ago, Guyana began retailing homegrown onions.
Shortly after I saw the local onions, I read about Guyana cultivating and selling roses. It was the brainchild of President Ali. The onions and roses waited until I am in my seventies to be grown commercially in Guyana. I think of the onions and roses and my mind went straight to two presidents – Forbes Burnham and Irfan Ali.
One – Ali – is building a fantastic legacy; the other, Burnham, has destroyed his legacy. But there is something they have in common. They wished for Guyana to be self-reliant, to grow its own products. President Ali is succeeding in that. I am proud of my education, so I would not despoil it by descending to ugly and vulgar propaganda. I believe there were good and bad in Forbes Burnham. The tragedy is that the bad overran the good. Burnham shaped an economy that allowed for Guyana to cultivate its own products and those products were in the dozens.
Burnham did not succeed. Why is Ali making a success out of his direction? The answer lies in Sigmund Freud. Burnham, at a deep, Freudian level, believed he was a special person that was beyond ordinary comprehension. Such a personality does not make for politics. When such a personality possesses power, disaster is inevitable.
So the online newspaper, Village Voice, responded to President Ali’s announcement of the advent of the National Development Bank by running an article with Burnham’s photograph and the three national banks Burnham implemented. All three failed just like his food campaign. This is where the comparison between Burnham and President Ali becomes a gold mine for researchers.
Mohammed Irfaan Ali is a genuinely modest man without even an infinitesimal touch of narcissism. Burnham was overflowing with narcissism. Ali’s directions and his policies are being carried out by a man who genuinely likes people and listens to them. When you have such a leader, the citizens accept his innovations and support them. Ali gets this support. Burnham didn’t.
Let’s give two mammoth examples of how Burnham and Ali wanted the same thing, but the population rejected Burnham. Each weekend, Burnham coerced public servants to do work at Hope Estate while Burnham rode on horseback and, for sadistic fun, would ride the horse on the workers while they scampered for safety. Burnham implemented a cotton project (National Service) in the interior and made it compulsory for UG students to pick the cotton. How, with that attitude, are citizens going to support your policies
Irfaan Ali is not coercing Guyanese to grow roses and onions. He is talking to them about the benefits of doing so and asking them how he, as president, can help. In conclusion, Burnham failed to get Guyanese to accept the theme of local cultivation, while Ali succeeded. One is a naturally nice man (Ali), while the other was instinctively authoritarian (Burnham).
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.
