POLITICAL REVISIONISM IN THE AGE OF COUNTER NARRATIVES

Dec 18, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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How does one lift the level of discourse about historical revisionism without resorting to attacks about who is a propagandist, who is trying to ingratiate oneself with the PPP, who needs psychiatric help and who hides behind a mask?
One can at least begin to avoid these pitfalls by accepting that political revisionism is fraught with controversy and prone to suspicion.
Political revisionism is not readily acceptable since it breaks down age-old assumptions, much of which have directed the lives of countless citizens, movements and parties. While, however, it is never easy to accept that a particular narrative of our history has been wrong all along, great care must be taken in assessing narratives which revise history.
Colonialism and imperialism had their own narratives. In the struggle for liberation and independence, a counter narrative emerged, one that threatened and challenged the stability of colonial rule and questioned its moral, economic and social underpinnings.
Cheddi Jagan helped to forge that anti-colonial and anti-imperialist counter narrative in Guyana, using as his weapon the ideology of socialism. Before him, there were those that created their own narratives, one that involved competition for social and economic space, and for greater representation within the legislative assembly.
The narratives have continued onto the present day. From anti-imperialism we have moved to other narratives, some pitted against the others and some in support of others. Inevitably, each epoch is defined by the narrative that prevails. However, the narrative which has been prevailed over never fades away, but always finds ways and means of becoming resurgent again.
A good example in the United States is the “Rocky” film series which speaks to the heroism of the American serviceman. This has helped to reshape the American psyche, painting its soldiers as heroes and victims of an establishment that betrayed these brave men and women. What better way for the Americans to save face after the humiliations of Vietnam!
In the writings of V.S. Naipaul, to use another example, we find a resurgence of the imperial idea, one in which the freed colony becomes disordered and chaotic, lacking men of ability and talent to undertake the task of governance, lacking in accomplishments and paling in the face of the great civilizations of Europe. Naipaul’s work evokes a central idea similar to Conrad’s, and that is, that the former colonized cannot do without their imperial masters; it is a counter narrative to the narrative that influenced the independence movement.
Ever since the PPP returned to power in 1992 we have had other narratives. And in some of these counter narratives we see a harking back to former “glory days”. Just recently, one individual was on national television speaking about the glorious civilization created by the PNC under Burnham and how the welcoming spirit of his people have been taken advantage of by others. This strikes a similar chord to the narratives of the late Ronald Waddell, who had spoken about interlopers.
Then we have those who are creating the narratives of the redeeming features of the colonial rule and the possibilities of real change within the plantation system in Guyana, a narrative that highlights the accomplishments of an individual over and above that of the ideology, which operated at another level to instigate change.
The seed of an idea is being allowed to germinate: the idea that as bad as the colonial system was, there were good men and women who made a difference. Again, this is in the mould of Conrad who, while criticizing the effects of empire on the colonized, was sure to emphasize that the colonized cannot do without the empire.
Much of the revisionist theories that are now infiltrating political and public discourse in Guyana stem not from the limited categorization that Dev wishes to offer i.e. either constructive or negative narratives. Rather, they stem from a revival of narratives that have not been totally discredited and thus in certain circumstances can find fertile ground in wish to mushroom.
Today, the notion of the PPP as a great party which fought for freedom in Guyana and which caused the powers of imperialism to tremble, is being threatened by a counter narrative of Cheddi Jagan as someone who was “highly flawed’; the PPP as a party which has brought social progress to Guyana is being countered by the narrative that it is more corrupt that the PNC and is an elected dictatorship.
Dev’s typology of constructive and negative narratives therefore needs reexamination. For one fundamental reason: his categories are subjective and value-laden. How does he fit the various narratives into these categories? Is it by outcome or by validity, and how does one determine the latter? By what measure does he decide what is constructive and what is not?
If one believes that there is such a thing as reality, then one must accept that there must be something called objective reality. However since this reality is only perceived and is perceived in different ways by different folks, then what may be objective truth to one individual may be objective fiction to another. The central hurdle to an assessment of these counter narratives is therefore the task of emerging with a framework of analyzing the validity of each narrative.
For without this framework, the debate will be reduced, and has already been reduced, to blind men fighting over something which may not exist and in the process tumbling over each other in a never- ending joust. For if narratives are the lenses, through which we interpret reality, then objective truth will always lie beyond our reach and the debate about who is right and who is wrong will be an exercise in futility.

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