The spectacle of empty suits at the leadership level is frightening

Jan 12, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,

President Jagdeo, as is his custom, continues to be superficial in his understanding of our difficulties. He has stated recently the simplism that the Alexander/McAllister contest against Mr. Corbin derailed greater collaboration between the two major parties.

First, Mr. Jagdeo should welcome a more democratic PNCR than one in which the rights of members are trampled upon. Second, greater collaboration is in the tradition of the Herdmanston Accord, and does not amount to power sharing. Third, there is a long history of failed efforts at joint government that predate perhaps the birth of Alexander and McAllister. Mr. Corbin, as a participant in those failed negotiations, should enlighten Guyanese about the role played by a prominent PPP leader in keeping Guyanese divided.

I have argued elsewhere that the economic self-determination that developed among East Indians, the cultural homogeneity (binding Hindus and Muslims) that the sugar plantocracy fostered, and the political homogeneity that was occasioned by the split in the PPP in 1955 have resulted in a movement that has become a racial behemoth. Western individualistic assumptions of political and other social behaviours do not in general apply to the East Indian phenomenon in Guyana. This is a racial bloc that does not perceive any advantage in political alliances.

The ruling class mentality has translated into obsequiousness among African house slaves; who, in the Herdmanston negotiations, have asserted that discussions between the two parties were not an exchange between equals. Mr. Nandalall’s concepts imply a superiority that African surrogates in the PPP accept and pronounce as the basis for race relations. Eustace Harlequinn, a debased house slave, touts the superiority of the behaviour of Mr. Moses Nagamootoo, and laments that Alexander and McAllister are not equally servile. In effect, there is no incentive to move towards collaboration. It has nothing to do with Alexander and McAllister.

Mr. Jagdeo is just as superficial in his concept of trust. At the level of individuals, complex factors determine the trust that a husband places in his wife. At the level of the wider societal relations, right wing economists like Francis Fukuyama see trust as the process of subduing individualism for the benefit of social goals. Clearly, collaboration comes first, and trust develops as people collaborate.

Jagdeo has the sequence wrong. He wants to see trust first and to pursue collaboration after. It does not work that way. One begins the process of collaboration first, and, bit by bit, trust develops, and the formality of rules can be dropped as trust develops.

Jagdeo is either dishonest or superficial in requiring Alexander and McAllister to be servile before he pursues collaboration. If I were Jagdeo, and had to choose as a basis for collaboration, I would much prefer the open behaviour of Alexander and McAllister than secrecy. That Jagdeo feels more comfortable with certain people shows that he has not transcended the inherited in-group trust of his racial group for the growth of trust that will result from increased collaboration with Africans.

The political leaders and the leading thinkers in the media are failing Guyana by burying in-depth analyses of social relations and surfacing superficialities, like the President’s comments. More bottom-up development among Africans is necessary, and more faith should be placed in the thinking of ordinary people. The spectacle of emptiness at the top is frightening.

Clarence F. Ellis

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The spectacle of empty suits at the leadership level is frightening

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