WHEN you are a daily commentator, people will miss many of your deliveries because it is natural for people to do so. Yesterday (Sunday), I published the second review of a fantastic book on Guyana titled, “A Proxy Africa: Guyana, African Americans, and the Radical Seventies” by Professor Rickford Russell, historian at Cornell University.

I got several emails about where the book can be bought. And I got two enquiries from two very well-known Guyanese asking me for my thoughts on what Burnham should have done with the global popularity he enjoyed in Africa and among Afro-Americans during the early 1970s.

I guess these people missed the first review on this page in June. Here are my replies to the enquires.  The book was sent to me and the person bought it from Amazon. The second enquiry is from two well known Guyanese that do not want to be named. I have to respect their wish. If they feel so, then so be it.  Their question was based on what I wrote yesterday (Sunday) about Burnham’s deep sympathy and manifest empathy for anti-imperialist Afro-American radicals, especially from the Black Panther Party, on how they were treated by the American establishment.

They wanted to know why Burnham allowed that moment of glory to evaporate and generated dislike among the very people that Burnham saved. What follows here is a very brief contribution to understanding one of Guyana’s enduring icons – Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham, the first executive president of Guyana.

I never met Burnham. I only saw Burnham once while I was in the Botanical Gardens. I was very young then. These notes are not based on extensive research. I was active politically in Guyana in the 1970s as a citizen and a UG student which gave me an insight into Burnham’s personality.

I saw first-hand how Burnham alienated the very freedom fighters that he rescued from American repression because one of them was my personal friend. That is described in the first review in June. Why did this happen, and could it have been avoided and therefore Burnham would have left a legacy of greatness?

There were two pathways Burnham could have taken but he chose not to. The rest of this column explains Burnham’s cul-de-sac. The first sought a genuine reconciliation with Cheddi Jagan.

Jagan was not your run-of-the mill opposition leader. The American freedom fighters that Burnham rescued and brought to Guyana admired and respected Jagan because Jagan was on the same wavelength with them – anti-imperialism.

What the majority of freedom fighters did not like about Jagan as Russell showed in his book, was Jagan’s closeness to the USSR which they felt was a proponent of a whiteman ideology. But they saw Jagan in a positive light. Burnham’s refusal to cement a working relationship with Jagan was bound to hurt Burnham’s anti-imperialist credentials.

So why Burnham allowed his relationship to deteriorate with Jagan, thus allowing the American freedom-fighters to grow uneasy? There is no need to offer a separate analysis on the same question in relation to Walter Rodney, which is the second pathway that Burnham didn’t take.  Burnham at a psychic level was trapped; there was no space even for a temporary respite.

Burnham could not have developed a smooth and accommodating relation with Jagan or Rodney because his inherent power instincts could not and did not release him to do so.

Nowhere in Rickford’s book did he describe any attempt by the freedom fighters to get Burnham to treat Jagan and Rodney with a reconciliation hand. The reason none of the freedom fighters attempted such a task was because as guests of the Guyana government they felt that could have been seen by Burnham as interference in Guyana’s sovereign affairs.

Apart from the power instinct that drove Burnham to reject talks with Jagan and Rodney was the instinct of narcissism. This is my complaint about Linden Lewis’ biography of Burnham. Lewis completely overlooked the presence of narcissism in Burnham. And I believe and always will that Burnham saw himself as a special person, too special to be first among equals, too special to be part of ordinary politics and too special to share political space with anyone else.

What emerged then was a tragic consequence. So enamoured with himself, Burnham felt he could have ignored Jagan and undermine Rodney and yet secure the abiding faith of the American freedom fighters and the continent of Africa. It couldn’t happen. It was a political impossibility. You cannot be anti-imperialist and pro-Africa and at the same time be monarchial. Gasoline does not douse fire; it makes it more destructive.

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.