Is it a case of different strokes for different folks?

Feb 03, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,

Arif Bulkan stated, (Kaieteur News, January 22) “Mr. Annan Boodram probably never knew he would trigger such strong and stirring responses from so many Guyanese to his letter (SN, December 31, 2009), “We must eschew the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mentality in the New Year”.

Besides being puzzled as to the connection between my name and the rest of his letter, I wonder how Mr. Bulkan is aware of what my expectations were. The fact is that I did expect the WPA to come out with guns blazing, given that the issues I raised had not been previously ventilated in the Guyana media. But what I did not expect was the application of an apparently new analytic tool of ‘ferreting out’, aided by a synecdochic labeling, whereby parts of one’s writings are extrapolated to represent the entire thrust and/or are detached from their contextual moorings and then used to label the writer. Thus, for example, by seizing upon an explicitly straightforward letter and transforming it into a statement on race, then proceeding to framework the motiveless juxtapositioning of Cheddi Jagan and Walter Rodney into a paradigm on race, David Hinds provided scope for the bandwagon effect that avoided or skirted the issues I raised and instead focused on derogating my integrity, my sincerity and my patriotism. Although, in their hustle to castigate Boodram, the manner in which the ‘bandwaggoners’ contradict each other was rather instructive.

While I reserve comment on David’s subsequent admission that he does take me at face value, I welcome and reciprocate his embrace of brotherhood. However, unless David and other WPA members and sympathizers are saying that its okay to place what has been said and written about the influence and impact of the PPP and Cheddi Jagan under the revisionist microscope but similarly treating the WPA and Walter Rodney is a sacrilege, then I do not see how my letter can be perceived as an assault on David’s collective place in the positive tradition of Guyana.

By that logic the continual campaign to diminish and distort that, which I, and thousands of others, placed personal advancement on hold, to sustain and bring to fruition, also has to be seen as an assault on our collective place in the positive tradition of Guyana, unless the argument is that we don’t have a place because we did not have name recognition on par with David and the WPA intellectuals. Besides, how can critique of the PPP and Dr. Jagan be revisionism while a similar treatment of Dr. Rodney and the WPA is labeled ‘rewriting of history’? Or is it a case of different strokes for different folks?

Furthermore, my letter focused on two national leaders, both with international standing. It was David who reduced Dr. Jagan and Dr. Rodney to Indian and Black leaders. Yet it is David (and the WPA) who argues that Dr. Rodney was a multiracial leader. So which is it – a black leader or a multiracial leader? In short, David Hinds and company end up being guilty of exactly what they accuse me, yet, not unexpectedly, they fail to see themselves as the pictures in the frames they build.

Let me make it absolutely clear that I did not state or imply that in toto Dr. Rodney was not a great person or that he wasn’t influential in Guyana’s political culture at a particular conjuncture. My point is that his contributions in the context of Guyana’s politics, have assumed hyperbolic proportions across time, through the pens of WPA intellectuals even though, outside of the their assertions, the literature on Dr. Rodney makes scant reference to any enduring impact on the Guyanese political landscape.

And these grandiose assertions do not stand up to scholarly scrutiny but rather seem to be premised on little more that the writers’ say-so, the implication being that their hyperbole should be unquestionably accepted as gospel. More importantly, anyone, who dares to challenge their conclusions, is automatically dubbed a racist and a PPP apologist or spin-doctor and any calls by such persons for a changed political culture is then deemed suspect.

So what are the issues I raised? As I previously pointed out, Dr. Rodney had returned to a socio-political landscape that had not been duplicated elsewhere in his experience and was quite different from the one he had departed in 1960. Thus his framework for change and progress was still evolving, when his life was tragically cut short.

This has been confirmed by a source, who was also a WPA insider like David Hinds, and who pointed out that seasoned politicians like Kenneth Persaud and Eusi Kwayana had to help Dr. Rodney maneuver the complexities and nuances of Guyana’s political landscape.

Secondly, it is quite clear that while Dr. Rodney did have some strong supporters, and had excited the imagination of umpteen others, he could not have claimed political allegiance on the part of the great masses of the population across all ethnic groups, given the fact that he had not intensively and extensively crisscrossed the nation to have been able to personally connect with every community, nor was he allowed time to impact their collective consciousness.

For example, according to very reliable sources, he held about four meetings on the entire Corentyne Coast. It seems that most of his efforts were concentrated in Georgetown and parts of Demerara.

And, given the psycho-social and ethno-cultural nature of political loyalties in Guyana, would it really be accurate to conclude that Dr. Rodney, charisma and all could so easily have swayed these loyalties on a mass scale? Eusi Kwayana, more than most, should know the difficulty of this endeavour.

Thirdly, I never stated or implied that Dr. Rodney was a violent person while Dr. Jagan was not. Instead, I proposed that Dr. Jagan’s rejection of armed violence was premised on his ideological analysis of the situation.

This does not mean that the Marxist, Dr. Jagan, may not have considered using violence as a political strategy.

In fact, I agree with Eusi Kwayana that Cheddi Jagan would have realised that a PPP call for an armed confrontation would have resulted in ethnic genocide of Indians given that the PNC held all the trump cards.

And had Mr. Kwayana read Ravi Dev’s column, which I quoted, he would have known that mention was made of the lessons Dr. Jagan learnt from the sixties. In any case, it is duplicitous of Mr. Kwayana to state “Dr Jagan and others had experienced four years of ethnic conflict in the sixties” without also stating who the others were.

Also, given that he was a Marxist revolutionary, it would be logical to deduce that Rodney’s analysis of the political situation and his consequent actions would also have been similarly premised and thus had nothing to do with whether he was a violent person. And, given Mr. Kwayana’s admission of Dr. Rodney’s call for ‘by any means necessary’, it would also seem logical that Dr. Rodney’s conclusions about the objective and subjective conditions may have been different from Dr. Jagan’s.

However, to assert “that the only political figure who could call on the nation to remove the PNC by any means and not excite fears of racial violence among the people was Walter Rodney” is mere supposition.

We do not know what such a call would have excited had it been allowed gestation time to imbue national consciousness. As it was, Dr. Rodney’s call made little stir beyond the confines of Georgetown. What we do know is that it was a relatively simple matter for the PNC to take Dr. Rodney out.

It is also worthy of note that Dr. Rodney was continually labeled a romanticist by Mr. Burnham, who was a shrewd judge of character, and who, some claim, assassinated Dr. Rodney not because of any perceived threat to his ‘throne’, but rather because of a deep seated personal animosity premised on Dr. Rodney’s constant belittling of Forbes Burnham. After all others had been murdered for far less. The simple fact is that the real reason has gone to the grave and no single speculation can claim to have all the merit.

Also it was not Annan Boodram who deemed Walter Rodney to be politically naïve; rather it was CLR James. Yet those who jumped on my backs conveniently forgot to challenge CLR James’s conclusion. In any case, Rodney’s actions do seem to support Mr. James’ conclusion given that Dr. Rodney allowed himself to be so easily set up and murdered.

Perhaps too the WPA may have played a part in this tragedy. To date no one within the WPA has been able to definitely say exactly what Dr. Rodney was up to when he was assassinated. Would it not therefore be logical to assume that Rodney trusted no one in the WPA to the extent that he would have fully shared his confidence? And perhaps that is why he did not use an intermediary, as any significant leader would have done?

In fact, a very reliable source informed me that one of Dr. Rodney’s siblings did emphatically disclose to him that Dr. Rodney did not fully trust the WPA leadership.

I never claimed or implied that Dr. Rodney was a maximum leader or that his mission was to build a political entity that endured with viability; to lay down a policy/programme that was visionary or impactful or to establish a cadre of leaders that forged ahead with any degree of political success.

I merely pointed out that these were some of the generally accepted indicators that reflect a political leader’s enduring influence and impact and in their absence such influence and impact would seem to be transient and personality centered. Yet the WPA and its intellectuals want to have their cake and eat it too!

For while they consistently assert Dr. Rodney’s enduring influence and impact in the context of Guyana’s politics, they point to no markers, rhetoric (powerful, persuasive language and style) aside, by which this assertion can be validated. Furthermore, I never stated/implied that Dr. Rodney was focused on creating a legacy (most people do not deliberately set out to create legacies), but is a legacy (maximum leader or not) not a manifestation of enduring influence and impact?

Also, the assertions that I do not criticise the PPP or Dr. Jagan and that I raised up an Indian leader while I pulled down an African were answered in my second letter (Chronicle: 01/04/10), which also addressed David’s concerns regarding omissions I supposedly deliberately made in relation to Dr. Rodney.

Besides, among my references were Dr. Rodney’s groundings, although one cannot help but wonder why such a positive concept as groundings would lead to Dr. Rodney’s expulsion from Jamaica.

Furthermore, given the limitations under which he operated, did Dr. Rodney actually achieve any significant level of groundings (which, by the way, he did not precisely define) in Guyana?

May I also point out that nowhere in my letter did I framework Dr. Rodney within the single leader concept, but can anyone seriously deny that Dr. Rodney stood head and shoulders above every other individual in the WPA leadership?

Moreover, most of the characteristics that Nigel Westmaas itemized as reflective of Dr. Rodney’s difference – the promotion of scholarship that was not only qualitative, but “relevant” to active life; free classes et al – actually are not features singular to Rodney, in the context of Guyana’s politics, nor do they, by themselves, prove significant impact/influence, especially since none of them were pervasive or enduring.

In any case, to date, no one, David included, has offered any subsequent acknowledgement of the contents of my second letter (Chronicle: 01/04/10). To quote his request made in relation to Dr. Randy Persaud, will David Hinds now ‘have the proper decency’ to acknowledge his error and apologise?

Annan Boodram