Betrayal and self-destruction in the African-Guyanese community

May 18, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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As the months tick away to 2011, it appears that Bharrat Jagdeo will leave no admirable legacy. We are almost halfway into 2009. From now until mid 2010, what can Mr. Jagdeo do with a government whose Treasury is not impressively filled with money and in a country where things move agonizingly slow to leave his indelible mark on the front cover of Guyanese history? The answer is not encouraging for the supporters of Mr. Jagdeo.

When he goes, no doubt there will be a plethora of assessments. Was he up to the task? Did he possess the leadership qualities to run a troubled post-colonial polity? Did he have any such qualities at all? Was he intellectually equipped to understand the complex nuances of Guyana?

How much of Guyana’s social and political structure did he understand? I will leave the answers for 2011 if life permits. But Mr. Jagdeo was not without some accomplishments. He certainly has no elegant achievements in the realm of economic development.

There is hardly an impressive record on the social front. Our physical infrastructure is still way behind our Caribbean neighbours. Even the traffic lights are not performing. Politically, Guyana remains a country that can explode at any moment.

Mr. Jagdeo had a deep-seated penchant for realpoltik. One can say that his extreme micromanagement style originated from that instinct. Mr. Jagdeo seems quite happy cocooned in the art of realpolitik. Instead of attending to developmental needs, he seems more to enjoy the politics of intrigues, plots and conspiracies. In other words, Mr. Jagdeo is a Macbethian politician.

And anyone who studies political history would see that the record shows that such Shakespearian dramas did not produce national development but calamities. Guyana would have been a top Third World country if Mr. Burnham could have elevated his learning in front of his Macbethian character. He couldn’t and in the end it undid him.

Scandals after scandals follow Mr. Jagdeo but he continues with his realoplitik schemes. One area in his Shakespearian game in my interpretation that Mr. Jagdeo has been successful at is in his confrontation with the African Guyanese leadership since 2001.

In this compartment of Guyana’s sociology, Mr. Jagdeo’s craft, though cunning and Machiavellian has brought some solidity to his power base. I will take one example for now – the University of Guyana. I will concede that his politics there has been noting but brilliant. I reject realpolitk because of its questionable moral base but Mr. Jagdeo’s power-play at UG in which he defeated a section of the African Guyanese community certainly needs writing about.

I will be brief and leave the major contents of my argument for an academic conference. The PPP, when it came to power, analysed UG as having two problems for the Government.

It had a number of well-established PNC staff and it was an institution comprised of mainly African Guyanese. The policy then was to neglect UG for reasons of realpolitik. With increasing cries of marginalisation, the PPP did not want to replace an African Vice-Chancellor with their East Indian choice. What happened after was a bold stroke by Mr. Jagdeo.

 

Mr. Jagdeo, in a cynical way, probably said to himself; “Ya’ll want an African head, I will give you one.” And he did. Mr. Jagdeo knew what he expected from his appointment. The African Guyanese leadership was elated. They got an African Guyanese.

Then the Shakespearian twists and turns appeared. Each time the Vice-Chancellor’s contract was up Mr. Jagdeo made it look like the African would be replaced. The UG community was incensed. Mr. Jagdeo relented. But the African community was betraying itself and was engaged in an act of self-destruction.

It never asked itself what it was getting from its preferred man. It was content with having him. In the meantime, the UG administration would be relentless in terminating or shortening lecturers’ contracts for lack of performance even though the institution had no resources.

The UG administration would be content to supervise the gradual decline of the university, never bothering to ask the central government for resources befitting a college of higher learning. The UG administration was never interested in taking the staff’s cries to the Office of the President. How could it? The President’s point people at UG knew what they had to do.

It was the African Guyanese community who was in confusion. Their racial choice at UG was not doing anything for them. Their racial choice ironically was the Government’s preference; thus words betrayal and self-destruction in my title. This is a story of the pitfalls of racial politics. A very sad one indeed.

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