The fault is not in the stars but in us: The story of Forbes Burnham

Sep 11, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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As you would have noticed; this year on both his birth and death anniversaries, I did not do an analysis on the late President Burnham. I thought I’d give it a rest. It was the same with Jagan.
Writing about these guys is boring stuff. I need the break from them. This year, revisionist interpretations have poured out on the political life of Forbes Burnham. No one mentioned me. Not that I mind.
I was the first non-PNC commentator that wrote several years back that the longer the PPP stays in power, revisionist writers are going to dismiss the good guy versus bad guy paradigm that had such a long life in modern Guyanese history and we are going to unearth materials that would weaken the harsh treatment of Burnham and reveal unsavoury sides to Cheddi Jagan. It is happening.
But other things are happening with Burnham that is unnerving. Some people are pushing the pendulum so far that they will push it into the Atlantic Ocean. It is quite silly for any educated mind to deny Forbes Burnham his leadership qualities and creative mind. I lived under Burnham and was educated enough to achieve the ability to analyse his politics.
Mr. Burnham was not an incompetent, mediocre leader. But the pro-Burnham writers are exaggerating his creativity and obfuscating his massive failures as a leader. From Mr. Burnham’s children through to his relatives right up to those who worship him, they have to admit that for all his qualities as a master strategist, Mr. Burnham created the invincibility and popularity of Dr. Jagan and made Jagan’s most effete protégés national “heroes.”
There is no doubt that Burnham was an astute thinker. He knew that free and fair elections in the Guyanese context were not operational. His thought on this was profoundly mature. In a plural society like Guyana, Burnham knew free election was a zero sum game. If the PPP won, Africans lose.
But from thereon, except for this one manifestation of relevant theorising, Mr. Burnham’s accomplishments were in the area of national programmes and not political vision.
If Mr. Burnham was as good in his political dynamism as he was in his developmental plans, there would have been no Cheddi Jagan, no PPP and Guyana’s history would have been, not partially, but completely different to what it is today.
From 1970 when Burnham handled the pension scheme of the employees of the foreign owned bauxite badly after nationalisation, to 1980 when a monarchial constitution was composed along with the assassination of Walter Rodney, Forbes Burnham showed very little political creativity and had already committed political suicide. From 1968, Jagan began to lose all the intellectual skills and top names his party had.
By 1981 when Burnham’s credibility vanished, with the exception of Ralph Ramkarran, popular journalist, Moses Nagamootoo and UG science graduate, Navin Chandarpal, Jagan’s protégés were literally non-entities. They were young boys and girls from the rural constituencies of the PPP who had no serious exposure to modern society and didn’t have a sound educational background.
But under Burnham’s expanding authoritarian bandwagon, these little nobodies became big names in Guyana. Burnham’s leadership qualities dried up, the PPP expanded its national, regional and international role. The PPP and its leader, Cheddi Jagan, had now become the key players and the future belonged to them, thanks to Forbes Burnham.
Yesterday, we heard how great Burnham was in the things he created. Today that refrain will play again. Tomorrow it is the same theme – Forbes Burnham was way ahead of his time, his nationalism was par excellence and Guyana made significant progress during his tenure. But these songs are all sung by his fans that cannot stand up to debate.
The Burnham admirers remind you of the Jagan admirers. They speak to the converted. They do not dare face an audience in a debate. Can all those who interpret Burnham as Guyana’s grand statesman tell us why under the PNC leadership from 1968 until he died in 1985, the WPA and PPP became extremely popular?
They won’t touch that subject because it brings into focus the leadership bankruptcy of Burnham. When the debate begins in front of a live audience the first question that must be asked of those who sit at the head table is how do you reconcile the vision of Burnham that if free and fair election was put in place, the PPP would have won and Indians would have dominated Africans, with the absolute madness of Burnham’s dedicated decimation of the WPA which had large support among the African middle class and African peasantry?

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