Burnham’s weltanschauung

Feb 24, 2013 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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Forbes Burnham’s weltanschauung – world view – was shaped by the oppressive living conditions under which the working people of British Guiana languished in the aftermath of the First World War. This was the worst economic depression of the 20th century. Living conditions for the masses were depressed; unemployment was widespread; social security was almost non-existent; disease was rampant; housing was deplorable and the economy was controlled by foreign multi-national corporations.
Burnham was born 90 years ago on 20th February 1923 during this depression. This was the time when the British Guiana Labour Union was founded and urban workers on the waterfront and rural labourers on the plantations were marching and rioting for higher wages and better living conditions. He won the British Guiana Scholarship and went to study law in Britain after the Second World War. London in these years was a hive of anti-colonial agitation and anti-capitalist activity.
Burnham’s weltanschauung was shaped by the legendary African and Caribbean students and war veterans who were there at one time or another. He served as president of the West Indian Students Union and was its delegate to the meetings of the International Union of Students in Paris in 1947 and in Prague in 1948. He also joined and worked for the League of Coloured Peoples and was elected vice-president of the London branch of the Caribbean Labour Congress. His grounding with the anti-colonial and Caribbean student community inculcated a strong desire for Guianese nationalism and Caribbean regionalism and for socialism.
Forbes Burnham’s thinking was heavily influenced by the social and economic policies of Clement Attlee’s post-war socialist Labour Party administration in Britain. It was Attlee who introduced the National Insurance Act and National Health Service and vigorously reduced unemployment. He nationalised energy generation – mainly gas, coal and electricity – and the railways. These ideas became embedded in Burnham’s world view.
He returned to British Guiana and became the main architect of the constitution and one of the major activists in the original People’s Progressive Party which was launched in January 1950. He was elected the first Chairman and Cheddi Jagan, Vice-Chairman. After a struggle with Jagan’s pro-Soviet faction, Burnham established the People’s National Congress on 5th October 1957. He was elected leader, Joseph Pryag Lachhmansingh, chairman and Jai Narine Singh, general secretary. A third party called the United Force – led by Peter d’Aguiar – was launched in November 1960.  Three main parties therefore contested the elections held in August 1961.
The years 1962 to 1964 were scarred by the ‘Disturbances’ marked by fierce struggles between the pro-PPP Guiana Agricultural Workers Union and the pro-UF Manpower Citizens Association in the sugar industry. Burnham correctly analysed the GAWU strike of 1964 as not a “struggle for independence and national liberation against the forces of imperialism [but] a brutal, cowardly, self-destructive war in which Guianese were deliberately encouraged to destroy one another and the imperialists were forgotten.”
The PPP lost office and was replaced by a coalition of the PNC and UF parties in the December 1964 general elections. Forbes Burnham was appointed Premier and received the Constitutional Instruments of Independence as Guyana’s first Prime Minister on 26th May 1966.
This was the opportunity for his weltanschauung to be made manifest. He launched the National Insurance Scheme. Infrastructural works – the rehabilitation of the coastal road network; pure water supply; sea defence; drainage and irrigation and electricity generation – were undertaken. The Black Bush and Tapakuma agricultural schemes were completed and the new international airport was opened.
Burnham’s world view was also visible in significant social, educational and cultural change. The University of Guyana and Cyril Potter College of Education campuses at Turkeyen were opened and several multilateral and hinterland secondary schools were constructed. Free education from kindergarten to university was introduced. The Caribbean Festival of Arts and the Guyana Festival of Arts were initiated.
The State Paper on the Equality of Women was presented and adopted in the National Assembly.  Special emphasis on the welfare of the indigenous peoples was signalled by the passage of the Amerindian (Amendment) Act and the process of vesting land titles in Amerindian communities began. The Islamic festivals of Eid-Ul-Adha and Youman Nabi and the Hindu festivals of Phagwah (Holi) and Deepavali became national holidays.
Forbes Burnham’s weltanschauung was manifest, also, in his foreign and regional relations. He played the leading role – with the active support of two other Caribbean prime ministers Vere Bird of Antigua and Barbuda and Errol Barrow of Barbados – in pioneering the Caribbean Free Trade Association, the forerunner of the Caribbean Community. Burnham was one of the four founding fathers who were the original signatories to the 1973 Treaty of Chaguaramas which established the Caribbean Community and Common Market. He also led the Caribbean in opposing apartheid in South Africa and became a formidable ally of African liberation movements.
Forbes Burnham had become Prime Minister in 1964 when the country was still smouldering from internal conflict and reeling from external aggression. He led Guyana to independence and it was out of his weltanschauung that the principles of statehood which have been largely responsible for the country’s evolution emerged. His enduring legacies are the spirit of social justice, economic independence and regional cooperation.

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