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Burt Bacharach on the first day of 2009
One of my favourite Bacharach tunes is “Wishing and Hoping” and I guess that is all we can do as we enter into a brand new year. What lies ahead no one knows but there are trends that we can follow and make predictions. As 2008 came to a close, the government announced that it will no longer continue the subvention to the TUC. Here is a graphic example of the trends that we can study to determine whether 2009 will bring reconciliation or continuing confrontation.
At the heart of the matter is the Guyana Government’s frenetic drive to weaken every pole of opposition to its rule. If the impulse comes from the Opposition, the trade unions, civil society or any sector, it is met with eager pugilism. This is zero sum politics that one day will explode.
The trouble with human beings is that they never learn. They are comforted with short term benefits and seem incapable of seeing that life has its logical functions that we cannot control.
The ruling party in Guyana is swimming in a river of assured security. It has subdued every actual and potential resistance to its rule. It has ended the year with an assault on the TUC. It will continue the bullying in 2009.
When the unwanted comes, we swear we will never let it happen again, then we lapse in a false sense of security and the cycle starts all over again. The Government of Guyana is contemptuous of the politics of realism. No ruling party anywhere in the world inherits a society where it has total support.
There will be communities and constituencies whose agenda differ from the goals of those in power. One of two roads can be taken – try to eliminate those sectors that do not embrace you or face the reality of practical politics and try to accommodate them with the ultimate intention of winning them over. The sensible road to choose is the second one.
For all the phenomenal hopes Mr. Obama has for transforming the American political landscape, and despite the massive popularity base he will be starting with, he is not going to confront certain ensconced constituencies in American society that do not support the Obama revolution.
No doubt he read President Clinton’s memoirs about that the nature of power in the US. One pole of power with which Mr. Obama is going to live and to hope that he influences in the long run, is the military-industrial complex. This is a power unto itself. It will not buckle to the wishes of any President easily. It will take time to cajole it onto the new horizon that Obama promises.
It is with this methodology in mind Mr. Obama has retained President Bush’s Defence Secretary, Robert Gates.
It is depressing to start with a pessimistic prediction, but the move against the TUC just as the year was about to end is a ghostly harbinger of what it to come in 2009. The reality on the ground is even though a majority of Guyanese want to see a process of reaching out by the Government, the many stakeholders in the society are too timid to make that suggestion.
The trepidation that deters them is the accusation of being anti-Government. That is a definite response one will get from both the Office of the President and Freedom House.
There are two changes that must come in 2009 if we are going to avoid the danger of altercation which is what characterizes the history of contemporary Guyana. One is that the opposition parties must know that their lackluster, jejune and abysmal performance in 2008 contributes to the death of spirit in Guyana.
People will hope and retain optimistic feelings if they know that there is an alternative government waiting in the wings and it is behaving as an alternative government. The only sign of activity in 2008 was the decision by the AFC to boycott Parliament after the PPP denied the Opposition a Members’ Day sitting.
No one is asking the Opposition to overthrow the government of the day. But the opposition parties must understand that their voters want them to be active rather than being press release parties.
Secondly, the business community has to comprehend the threads of Guyanese history before it to late for them. The country’s political history has been punctuated with terrible manifestations of instabilities.
Hundreds of billions of dollars are invested into this country by Guyanese entrepreneurs that want to see Guyana develop. They must invoke the courage of Peter D’Aguair and Yesu Persaud and try to stop the abuse of power that will inevitably lead to the only thing we fear so terribly – destruction.
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