Emotions and dictatorship

Sep 12, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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When the CGX rig was expelled by Suriname’s gunboats, a group of academics held a symposium on the issue at the City Hall. I was one of the panelists. The late Ronald Waddell, during question time, got up and said to me that the GDF should not fight if a war broke out between the two neighbours, because the Government of Guyana did not serve the interest of African Guyanese. When he made his utterance, my memory went back to test cricket in Guyana in the seventies and eighties.
East Indian Guyanese shamelessly supported any visiting team against their home West Indian side. The psychology was understandable but it was morally and nationalistically reprehensible. The explanation lies in emotions. East Indians in the seventies and Waddell in the nineties were overcome by emotions which removed the rational approach to nation-building.
For East Indians back then, Guyana was a dictatorship which derecognized their legitimate acceptance in the social scheme of things.
For East Indians, Burnham was a dictator who ruled without an input from other parties and organizations. They saw Guyana as Burnham and Burnham as Guyana. Waddell perceived politics in the same vein. In general, when a country is run along authoritarian lines, people become alienated. They tend to judge issues using emotions, not reason and logic.
This situation can be applied to elected dictatorship in Guyana. We can examine the failure of President Jagdeo’s EPA efforts in Barbados to test that thesis.
A caveat is in order. This essay is not about why President Jagdeo was unsuccessful in getting Caricom leaders to reject signing the EPA. That in itself is separate analysis. Factors include the vehemence of Mr. Jagdeo about ACP solidarity, yet despite the life and death situation of the EPA, Mr. Jagdeo was bypassing the ACP meeting for a mere speaking engagement in China.
The Caricom leaders would not have been unmindful of that mistake. Also the question of consultations. Did the Caricom Heads know that there were no deep consultations in Guyana between the Government and its subjects on the EPA? Perhaps they did. News spreads fast in the region. Also there could have been a feeling among the Heads that Mr. Jagdeo is using the EPA for reasons of domestic politics. The Barbadian Prime Minister made a subtle remark in that direction which was carried in the media. Also, isn’t Caricom tired of Guyana and its problems?
When President Jagdeo announced his intention to defy the EU and reject the contents of the EPA, not surprisingly, there was no immediate reaction in the private media, political society, the business community, the trade union movement and the society in general. Absolutely nothing was written about Mr. Jagdeo’s position by stakeholders in Guyana in the media. There were no expressions of public concern. It was as if it was a non-issue.
As I wrote before, only the Rice Producers Association gave sympathy to Mr. Jagdeo. Just two days before the so-called consultation at the Convention Centre, the Private Sector Commission joined the RPA. One day before the “big consultation” the PNC held its usual press briefing and there was no outpouring of sentiments for the EPA stance of Mr. Jagdeo
How do you explain that the President of a country announced that the nation’s future will be in jeopardy because it is being forced to sign a horrible trade agreement that will impact harshly on its economy and the society showed no emotional or nationalist reaction? Compare Mr. Jagdeo’s “patriotic” rebuff of the EPA with how Guyanese reacted when the CGX rig was expelled by Suriname or when Venezuela soldiers shot a Guyanese on Guyanese soil in the Essequibo. If the EPA will engender structural damage in the Guyanese economy in the not too distant future, the totality of the Guyanese society is not taking it seriously.
Of course the nation’s cynicism about the EPA deepened with the nature of the consultation held. Two and a half hours were set aside for this dialogue with President Jagdeo and “his people.” Yet this Government had the temerity to announce a process called the “Guyana Consensus” on the President’s initiative on the EPA. More barefacedness occurred when the Government claimed that a majority of stakeholders came on board but none was identified. More barefacedness followed when the Government indicated it was taking a number of trade unionists to Barbados to help Mr. Jagdeo with his defence but not one was named. Is this the way democratic governments behave?
The truth of the matter is that the Guyanese population showed no interest in Mr. Jagdeo’s EPA crusade because they reacted emotionally to Mr. Jagdeo and how he exercises power. For this reason, the President lost the EPA battle.

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