Revisionist historiography of Guyana in the sixties is missing

Oct 07, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I refer to Mr. Harry Hergash’s letter of Oct 6 in response to my column on Peter D’Augiar (“Lee and Taylor: Footnotes in the Shakespearian Wind,” Oct 3)) One of the most incredibly egregious sins of Guyana which is almost fifty years old as an independent State is that no scholar, not one of them, whether in Guyana or out, has taken a revisionist interpretation of the politics of the sixties in British Guiana. It is downright shameful
For over fifty years, the historiography of this troubled period has laid blame on Forbes Burnham and Peter D’Aguiar. When you look back fifty years ago and compare it with politics in our land today, you are curious as to what was so bad that Burnham and D’Aguiar did. I want to make my little contribution through this little piece here to a revisionist historiography of British Guiana in the sixties
Mr. Hergash wrote that he did not agree with my interpretation of Guyanese history and the opinions expressed in the column he reviewed. There were only two controversial views in the article to my mind. One is that I justified D’Aguiar’s intervention in toppling the PPP from power because he saw the PPP as a politically evil outfit and the PPP continued presence in power would have destroyed Guyana. I stand by my assertion in the column
Secondly, I observed that Peter Taylor had an attempt on his life by the then PPP Government. I know this because I have proof of it. One of my close relatives was one of the attackers (more on this a day in the future). I stand by that conclusion too. Mr. Hergash was a teacher in the early sixties and was close to the scene.
I would suggest that at his age he makes peace with his scholarly mind and his conscience. The sixties were more deceptive in appearance than many people like Mr. Hergash think. I would appeal to Mr. Hergash to forget about Dr. Jagan’s book, West on Trial. It is not objective stuff that we could learn from
The question that I need to be answered is what was so bad that D’Aguiar did in the sixties? Mr. D’Aguiar led a popular Hobessian rejection of a government he thought was destructive. There was mass support for his action. The examples of such political behaviour in history and in contemporary times are literally countless. Not to forget that Mr. D’Aguiar was pitted against Dr. Cheddi Jagan inside the narrative of the Cold War. Mr. D”aguiar stood on one side, Dr. Jagan on the other.
Mr. DAguiar has been accused of trying to remove Dr. Jagan for anti-communist reasons. Dr. Jagan supported the removal of the Czechoslovakian President in 1968 for pro-communist reasons. Dr. Jagan accused D’Aguiar of trying to overthrow an elected government. All his life, Dr. Jagan embraced a non-elected government in Cuba. Exactly what Peter D’Aguiar did in the sixties that has caused PPP-inclined scholars, particular East Indian writers to so demonize him?
Take Peter Taylor, the editor of the Evening Post. Mr. Hergash lived through the period of Taylor’s crusade against the PPP Government. In the West On Trial and other manuscripts, Taylor is made to look like a terrible journalist that did untold wrongs to the PPP. Mr. Hergash and others have to be irredeemable (like Rickey Singh) to say that Taylor’s Evening Post was more obnoxious than the Chronicle under the PPP from 1992 to the present time and in which time Mrs. Jagan kept a tight control on the paper. If Peter Taylor ran a biased newspaper then please tell me what Mrs. Jagan ran in the nineties in the form of the Chronicle
What Mr. D’Aguiar did to the PPP Government in the sixties that the PPP under Cheddi and Janet Jagan didn’t do to the two PNC Governments in the seventies and eighties? Then there is the role of the CIA. This part of the interpretation of the sixties becomes silly and clownish with the continued denunciation of Burnham’s acceptance of resources from the CIA.
I ask again; what was wrong with Burnham taking funds from the CIA but was right when Jagan did the same from the USSR? This is why I assert that there is a dire need for revisionist historiography of the sixties in British Guiana. Why was it wrong to overthrow a pro-communist government in Guyana but it was right to topple pro-western administrations in Cuba and Czechoslovakia
Space does not permit further conceptual debate but my personal feeling is if the PPP should be out of office, Banks DIH may want to spend money to keep the flame of D’Aguair’s contribution burning. In the same breath, I would urge the Guyana Press Association to honour the names of outstanding journalists like Peter Taylor and Carl Blackman. I close with an appeal for academics to engage in revisionist analyses of Guyana so we can dispel some monstrous myths.
Frederick Kissoon

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