Elected dictatorship and the signs of untergang

Dec 16, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

One of the mental strands that permeate autocratic leadership is something ordinary people cannot fathom, no matter how much they try. We do not have to go to Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Russia or elsewhere to understand this mystery. One can start with our own country, Guyana.

Forbes Burnham would not have become the unpopular President he was if he wasn’t so assured of himself and what he was doing. There is a psychological dimension in eerie rulers that blinds them to the reality of the day. One nasty policy after another is pursued; people talk, people cry out, but these autocrats are too cocooned in their false sense of self-assurance to see the rising tide of unpopularity.

I saw that Burnham had reached a point where he should have backed down. It came with the banning of Walter Rodney from UG. It was bound to send huge implications all around the world given Rodney’s international status. But the economy was doing well, sugar prices were soaring, Jagan was running around shouting communism as if he was the son of Marx, and Burnham’s popularity was still intact.

This crucial mistake was the beginning of Burnham’s untergang (see one of the best movies on Nazi Germany by that name; it means “downfall”). One egregious policy followed another.

Burnham’s untergang was taking shape but he was more preoccupied with his self assurance. Rodney was banned in 1974. In 1976, without consultations with the opposition, the churches, and the wider society, National Service was made compulsory.

UG students with a range of skills were not allowed an opportunity to impart them to the country but ended up marching in the sun, being taught to shoot machine guns and picking cotton in the deep recesses of the country’s interior.

Brigadier David Granger and Major-General, Joe Singh, so smitten by the concept of National Service (which honestly is a fine one) up to this day cannot see some of the strategic mistakes in the implementation of National Service).

The dictator loses the perspective of rationality. He does know when to “cool” down things. He doesn’t know when to slow down the momentum. Then things fall apart. People, including judges, civil servants, party supporters, begin to cling to human decency.

They make decisions that they hope will restart the process of regeneration. It has been sixteen years since the PPP has been in power. It does not take even a dose of brilliance to see the characteristic of false self-assurances is drowning this regime. One deplorable policy follows another.

We are heading in the direction of the era when Forbes Burnham couldn’t control the rise tide of unpopularity. We are traveling on the road to untergang.

We can say that one of its features is the decision by Acting Chief Justice Ian Change on the right of the people of Linden to see which television channel they would like to. This ruling came after the PPP voted down a motion put forward by the AFC in Parliament two Wednesdays ago to allow other transmitting stations to beam their signals to Linden.

One wonders what went through the mind of the judge as he read the facts on the affidavit of the plaintiffs. It is the kind of wording that we in this country thought should never happen again.

I have heard countless people say in the immediacy of the 1992 election results that what Guyana went through with the Government of Forbes Burnham, we should never let it happen again.

Only sycophants and fools would deny that it is not occurring right here in Guyana again after twenty-eight years of tremendous struggle to have Guyana become a free country.

The word ‘asinine” may not be out of context here to describe the defence of those who support the decision of the Government of Guyana to deny the people of Linden their right to see television programmes from other channels except the Government-owned NCN. This is dictatorship. This is barefaced dictatorship. This is unbelievable dictatorship.

What logical argument can the human mind find to support such nasty politics? We are on the road to untergang. Slowly and slowly, the journey moves towards its logical conclusion.

Along the way, we pass the heroism and bravery of Justice Ian Chang. One does not have to be familiar with the law and books on justice to know that nothing in human knowledge can justify a government telling the citizens of one of its towns that they cannot be allowed to see the television stations of their choice.

Let us hope that in 2011 when national elections are due, Guyana would see its second episode of untergang.

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Elected dictatorship and the signs of untergang

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