Voters hold the key to the race issue in Guyana

Jan 22, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Mr Annan Boodram probably never knew he would trigger such strong and stirring responses from so many Guyanese to his letter, “We must eschew the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mentality in the New Year,” (SN, December 31, 2009).
I have lost count of the number of letters and memory of all the names of responders, but it was only after reading Mr. Eusi Kwayana’s illuminating letter, “Jagan and Rodney were not in competition and not opposed to each other,” (SN, January 17, 2010), that I felt the urge to add my two cents worth of opinion based on what I learned.
I must say also that letters from Mr. Seelochan Beharry and Anand Daljeet in Kaieteur News, January 21, serve to confirm that the subject matter has really touched a raw nerve in more people than anyone could have imagined, and there may yet be more in the offing with fresh, if not, different perspectives we heard or read about long ago.
Unlike Mr. Kwayana, whose simple but effective writing style and seemingly firm grasp of important aspects of our contemporary political history I admire and respect, I am not really late in joining the discussion/debate.
I deliberately procrastinated joining the debate/discussion because I long concluded that as long as persons approach the debate/discussion with predisposed positions there will be no easy reconciliation of the diverging opinions on our country’s ethnic-based politics.
Past discussions/debates on this issue show that too many folks either have an axe to grind or they have access to pockets of debatable information that still don’t tell the whole story.
It is like a jig-saw puzzle but with pieces scattered all over the place.
Even so, I won’t discourage anyone from discussing/debating the matter if it will lead to corrective action and racial unity as opposed to engaging in pure academic reasoning or in the usual finger-pointing blame game.
But for Guyanese who were born especially after the racial disturbance in 1964, however, all that the contentious ‘us’ versus ‘them’ debates/discussions may be doing is helping them understand why there is such a stark division between Indians and blacks today, even though we achieved political independence from the British in 1966 and adopted the motto: ‘One People, One Nation, One Destiny’.
In my humble opinion, any discussion/debate on our racial problems should be able to trace our racial problems back to the era when the British colonialists brought in Indentured servants from India in overwhelmingly large numbers to serve as a counter balance to the then Black labour force of freed Black slaves who openly agitated for better working conditions on the plantations. My source can be found in the writings of the late Dr. Walter Rodney who, incidentally, was also hip to the fact that the PPP and PNC wrongly exploited their supposed ethnic bases for support and votes, and that’s why he refused to join either on his return to Guyana back in the 70s. Dr. Rodney, despite his human frailties, refused to play the race card in Guyana.
Anyway, ironically, the same British colonialists, in support of the Americans, played a critical role in the late 50s and early 60s to help undermine the Indian-led and supported PPP from establishing a communist government in Guyana by backing a Black Guyanese named Forbes Burnham who leaned on Blacks for support and votes.
Note carefully the role of foreigners as a major reason why Indians and Blacks grew to distrust each other, but unlike the plantation era when the motivation was for economic reasons, the motivation for the politically inspired ethnic-based fight of the late 50s and early 60s was about a much bigger fight on the global level: the Cold War that pitted the United States against the former Soviet Union for global supremacy and domination.
So while many today continue to blame the British and the Americans for collaborating with Burnham to oust the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan from power, the local struggle for political power that triggered the ethnic divide or the ethnic divide that triggered the struggle for political power was merely capitalized on happened by the world’s two superpowers for world dominance, and while Jagan and Burnham rallied their respective ethnic support bases to gain political power, the West simply saw then the British Guiana as a prize worth fighting for.
The West didn’t back Burnham because he or his support base was Black; it was a matter of political convenience for the West that the election machinery was manipulated to produce a result satisfactory to the West. If Burnham was not around, the West would have gone for the next best alternative, which could have been Peter D’Aguiar.
Racial fighting between Blacks and Indians in Guyana was a means to an end for Western leaders back then, and so the 60s were more than just about a race war; it was also about ideological war, and that needs to be accentuated in the equation of racial strife in Guyana.
Unfortunately for Jagan, after Burnham prevailed over him and the American-led West prevailed over the Soviet-led East in Guyana in 1964, the victory for the West and Burnham left a bitter taste in the mouths of mostly have resulted in a massive trade in Guyana’s prime timber species, with little benefit to the local economy, either in employment or  value-added products. Rather than trade in insults and make unsupported statements about Dr Bulkan’s understanding of forestry practices or her objectivity and patriotism, the government should deal with substance and answer the specifics of her criticisms.
According to the Government complaint to the World Bank, Dr Bulkan has “participated in slanderous statements accusing the Government and President of incompetency (sic) and shady activities.”
Let me add that if Dr Bulkan’s statements are indeed untrue or unsupportable, then this also makes them actionable. In other words, if Dr Bulkan has participated in slander against the Government and the President, they ought to have sued her in the local courts, instead of secretly getting her removed from an international panel. But litigation would have required a full ventilation of the substance of her claims, as well as the release of official records jealously guarded by the GFC, hence the petty reaction instead.
Let me close by making a full disclosure: Janette is my sister, so my objectivity may be legitimately questioned. However, Janette is obviously able to defend herself, and my interest is in the larger issues of freedom of speech, democracy and good governance.
In Guyana today there is little room for public discussion, and citizens who speak out are harassed and victimized.
Readers may recall that at the launching of Guyana Times in May 2008, Dr Yesu Persaud pointed to the irregularity of the tax concessions granted to the newspaper’s parent company, which happened to be owned by the President’s close friend.
The President’s immediate response was a public and unseemly tongue-lashing of this elder statesman, then later obscenely to amend the law retroactively so as to validate the earlier illegality.
Freddie Kissoon, another fearless academic who constantly criticises the PPP, has been minutely investigated by the GRA, while at the same time money laundering continues apace and with apparent impunity in Guyana.
Head of the Press Association Gordon Moseley was banned from entering the Office of the President, and in an interview defending such intolerance the President stated that it is a “privilege” for reporters to go to the Office of the President. (SN, October 18, 2009).
On a significantly larger scale, SN was starved of government ads for an extended period two years ago, while Tony Vieira, a PNCR Parliamentarian and vocal critic of the government, was hounded out of broadcasting last year.
As these examples show, despite the rhetoric of democracy, the PPP simply cannot tolerate opposing views, and their venom stretches from poor academics (Janette and Freddie) to big companies (VCT 28 and SN). Such behaviour, however, is incompatible with a truly democratic state.
As it was put in the Canadian Supreme Court: “Without [the] freedom to express ideas and criticise the operation of institutions and the conduct of individual members of government agencies, democratic forms of government would wither and die…” Closer home, one of our own jurists, Justice of Appeal RH Luckhoo, described freedom of expression as “one of the pillars which support the edifice of a free and healthy society”.
Do we have a ‘free and healthy society’ in Guyana today? This latest action of the PPP reveals the extent to which Government fears public scrutiny, as well as the depths to which it will go in order to silence critics.
Guyanese, however, ought to resist being muzzled, for constructive criticism and the exposing of incompetence and corruption promote good governance and force governments to be accountable to the electorate.
If we fall for this red herring about Dr Bulkan’s patriotism – that is, focus on the messenger – we will lose the value of her message. If Dr Bulkan’s message is valueless then the Government should tell us why, instead of resorting to petty insults and victimization, inside and out of Guyana.
Arif Bulkan

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