Courtney Walsh and the nature of power in Guyana

Nov 15, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

---

Courtney Walsh is to Jamaica what Brian Lara is to Trinidad, Vivian Richard to Antigua, and Sobers to Barbados.

Courtney faced an election for President of the Jamaican Cricket Association. To the average person, it was a foregone conclusion. He is the West Indies’ largest wicket-taker.

He is a Caribbean icon, and someone who knows about cricket in an expert way. Courtney lost to a businessman, not another former genius cricketer.

That unexpected loss by Walsh tells a story of nation-building and political culture. It also indicates, in a large way, how the Jamaican society operates, and perhaps most other democratic states, except maybe Guyana.

All Guyanese who would stay here and spend the rest of their lives in this country should reflect on the reason for Walsh’s loss. It has immense implications for the future of Guyana.

Why did Walsh lose out? Definitely not because he is an unlikable personality. Walsh is reputed to be one of the pleasantest players that ever graced West Indian Cricket.

In the end, the voters had to choose between a cricket icon and someone with the financial and management resources. They knew that if Jamaica’s Cricket is to develop, it requires more than just the past heroism of a great player.

It needs someone with relevant skills. Obviously, there is something called cricket development, which is distinct from playing cricket itself.

Cricket development requires money, PR skills, management techniques, marketing acumen, and important contacts in the corporate world.

Transport that thinking to Central Government and you have a good start in nation-building. The trouble with Guyana is that we put political incestuousness in front of relevant skills. In this context, I believe Burnham had done better than the present government.

I keep hearing all the time from the sycophants of the PPP Government of how terrible Burnham was, and that it is completely unacceptable to compare the Burnham Government with the PPP Administration. In political theory, such a comparison is tenable.

The method the PPP supporters use is one designed to trap a debater. A PPP polemicist wants you to compare the two governments.

He/she feels that they are on safer ground when they do that, because the Burnham Government was so deeply authoritarian that the comparison is bound to break down.

A more productive method is to dissect different dimensions of the exercise of power under Burnham and the PPP since Cheddi Jagan died. What one will find are areas of political degeneracy that, surprisingly, did not exist under Burnham.

This is a theory of mine that I have explained in front of academic audiences, have written about on this page, and will seek to expand as a special approach to understanding the nature of PPP rule under Mr. Jagdeo.

Under Burnham, nationalist endeavours were more pronounced. This is a long discussion that cannot fit into a newspaper column.

Briefly, the African middle class has been more protective of the state, because of the way the African middle class evolved after Emancipation.

What one found under Burnham, despite his ubiquitous autocratic habits, is a more dedicated attitude to state institutions.

Despite the paramountcy of the party doctrine, Burnham and his colleagues in the PNC leadership had more respect for intellectual prowess, training and erudition than anyone the PPP has produced, be it Cheddi Jagan, Janet Jagan, Bharrat Jagdeo among others.

This was translated into the acceptance into public sector employment by people who were superbly educated.

There was the ubiquitous party card that job seekers found convenient to have under Burnham’s rule, but the PNC and Burnham, (and Hoyte, of course) was interested in having talented and educated people to help him with the functioning of the state sector. Burnham took first class thinkers and put them in high-level state jobs even though they had no PNC credentials.

Hoyte did the same at a deeper level, as in the example of Tyron Ferguson as Head of the Presidential Secretariat.

If one studies Burnham’s choices for top placements, one would find people like Fred Wills, Sir Shridath Ramphal and others.

He wanted to have these people in the public sector so they could have enhanced the working of state institutions.

The PPP, under Cheddi Jagan, Mrs. Jagan, and now Mr. Jagdeo, have not shown the same attitude to state institutions.

The PPP’s political culture does not allow it to see a role for non-PPP personnel. This has had horrible consequences for the state sector.

The PPP has absolutely no moral shame in putting all kinds of ragged people in high places, once they are part of the Freedom House establishment.

Some of these types have even behaved in the most depraved manner towards women folks. And they remain untouched.

---

---