The end of history?

Apr 10, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Since reading Francis Fukuyama on ‘The End of History and the Last Man’, every time I go to Barbados, I smile at the thought of having, in Caribbean terms, arrived at “the end of history”.
In a nutshell, Fukuyama argued that mankind has reached the zenith of its ideological evolution with the establishment of the modern liberal democratic state, rooted as it is in free-market capitalism. We may tinker with the internals of its framework, but with its formation history ends: mankind has arrived at the “final form of human government”.
I am not saying that I agree with Fukuyama (I don’t) or that the outcome he envisaged is “good”. He himself said: “Even though I recognise its inevitability, I have the most ambivalent feelings for the civilization that has been created in Europe since 1945, with its north Atlantic and Asian offshoots. Perhaps this very prospect of centuries of boredom at the end of history will serve to get history started once again.” Yet his prediction of a modern functioning democratic state able to sensibly provide for the aspirations of its people and with which they are comfortable, is certainly a desirable outcome at this stage of our development.
For the most part, from the 1950s to the end of the Burnham era, both the opposition and government in Guyana held to the Marxist notion of “the end of history”. Communist society would consist of none of the major contradictions of the class societies that preceded it and would thus be the final form of political organisation. As a practical outcome, this vision has now been discredited. Subsequently, notwithstanding free and fair elections since 1992, from Desmond Hoyte to the present we have been searching for the kind of political legitimacy that will foster the level of development that we desire and deserve.
This is the overarching context within which the late Janet Jagan can be assessed and – in my opinion – be found wanting. But people have different sides from which they can be examined and it is to aspects of Mrs. Jagan’s personal side that I first turn.
I had visited Freedom House off and on since the mid-1970s but had very little contact with Janet Jagan until1990, when Cheddi invited a group of us to his house. For over a decade I had been discussing politics with Cheddi (as I had with Boysie Ramkarran) and had repeatedly contended that he would not be allowed to lead Guyana, since the Marxism/Leninism he espoused made him unacceptable to the Americans. When, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I ran into him in the corridors of Freedom House and tried to convince him that his time had now come, he enquired if I had gone mad. For years I had been telling him that he wasn’t ready; how come he suddenly now was? I should get some people together and come to his house for a discussion. Then, as now, I was at the University of Guyana, and was discussing these issues with colleagues there. I put together a team of Mark Kirton, Dennis Bassier, Denis Canterbury and Theo Morris, and off we went to the Jagans.
I think that this is the first occasion on which I spent any length of time in the presence of Janet Jagan. She did not take part in the discussions but continuously served us with fruits, pholourie and Radeburger beer.
After that introduction, the discourses we subsequently had left me with the distinct impression that, at least at the personal level, Janet Jagan was a worldly but caring person. While I was Minister of Housing, she called me at home to voice concern for my safety. I had a problem with the distribution of what people in Paradise considered to be ancestral lands and was due to go there the next day to try to resolve it. She called to tell me not to go because her sources had told her that I would be harmed. One cannot however be a Minister and lay low every time you are threatened, so I went.
There was huge commotion but nothing serious happened, thanks to the likes of (if my memory serves me well) Jeffrey Thomas and others.
My stomping ground was in the Ruimveldt area and when it was mooted that Janet run for the presidency, there was such extreme hostility towards her that I suggested to her that she should consider not running. This was not a Jagan thing: the hostility was specific to Janet. Cheddi could go anywhere and on one occasion Joey came stomping with us and was treated like a mini celebrity.
She sat me down in the blue room at the Office of the President and told me that most of the hostility was due to the fact that she was white and that the British and their ilk had deliberately demonized her. True though this may have been, it wasn’t the point. On the day she announced her resignation I was rather sad and, perhaps sensing this, she told me as I was leaving that she would still be around.
One Saturday morning at Freedom House she called me in and after discussing some other things told me that I should be careful as some people had complained that I had been dancing at Palm Court with my shirt off. As I was about to leave, she mischievously said: “I wish I was younger these days.”
All those who knew Janet Jagan on a personal level must, like me, deeply regret her passing.
But at the political level, it is my view that the years in the political wilderness due largely to rigged elections; the treatment she suffered after she won free and fair elections; the court decision on what she thought was a binding agreement with the opposition but which ended up vitiating her election; the public service union strikes, which she thought were politically motivated, and the arbitration decision which she believed was extremely unreasonable given the state of the economy, all took their toll. This was first seen in her frustrated reaction when served with the court order that attempted to prevent her swearing in.
In my view, there was never a question of Janet Jagan not wanting dialogue or a continuous and productive relationship with the opposition and other forces in society. However, I believe that events, such as those mentioned above, led her to believe that one could not address such important matters as inclusive or shared governance at the current time.
It is public knowledge that she subscribed to the position that such matters could only be entertained when trust between the PPP/C and PNCR had been developed. Until then, one must do the best one could.
But while this position is understandable from both the historical and psychological standpoints, one should not succumb to it.
Despite the turmoil and wrongdoings it may have suffered, leadership needs to be more innovative and forward thinking.
Indeed, I believe that visionary leadership must continuously seek ways to immediately and radically improve the lives of our people. In our context this must mean that it urgently finds and cuts a path to “the end of history”.
Henry B. Jeffrey

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