THE PNCR IS MAKING A TACTICAL MISTAKE

Jan 23, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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How can you boycott something to which you were not invited? This is the contention of the PNCR in relation to its non-participation in the launching of the International Year of People of African Descent (IYPAD).
The PNCR has a point. If you were never invited to be part of something, then your non-participation cannot be described as a boycott. However, the more central question is whether the PNCR intends to be part of the many state-sponsored events during this year. That question was answered definitively on Friday when the PNCR explained that it would not be attending any state-sponsored event until the concerns of African-Guyanese, which it says are known to the government, are addressed.
This is tactically a bad decision on the part of the PNCR. If the PNCR wanted to show support for those groups who felt they were excluded from the planning of the year of activities, they should have stated that. They should have said that they would not be participating because legitimate African organizations were excluded from the planning and therefore the events were not reflective of the input of important stakeholders.
This would have been a much firmer ground on which to stand than the one the PNCR is now giving. The party is now placing pre-conditions on its participation. It is saying that unless the concerns of African Guyanese are addressed it will not attend any state-sponsored event.
The PNCR may wish, however, to ask itself how it is that these concerns are going to be addressed if the party which the vast majority of African Guyanese in Guyana are believed to support, is not going to go and present these concerns to the authorities. There can be no agenda reflecting these concerns if these concerns are not represented.
To this, the PNCR implies that the government is aware of these concerns. That may well be so, but the PNCR is experienced enough to know that despite concerns being known, the government often needs to be nudged in that direction. The only way for this to happen is for the PNCR to keep these concerns on the agenda and the opportunities presented during this, the IYPAD, would have provided a wonderful platform for the party to remind all and sundry about these concerns, whatever they are.
In an election year, this would have had a partisan benefit to the main opposition because it could have milked the political capital that would have come with this process. Instead, it has opted to virtually stay away from the state-sponsored activities for the remainder of this year, since some of the concerns that it is presumed that the PNCR wishes to address cannot be done overnight.
One of the problems with the PNCR’s stance is that it assumes that the public is aware of what specific concerns, out of the multitude of such concerns that exist, it wishes to be addressed.
But assuming that the concerns it wishes to be addressed are those related to the thorny question of ancestral lands, then it is clear that the PNCR is asking for too much in too short a time. The IYPAD runs for 2011 alone, and the issue of ancestral lands is going to take a far longer time to even develop an approach much less to address.
As the PNCR is fully aware, it is not simply a political decision that has to be made; there are all kinds of legal and other technical ramifications to be undertaken before any real progress can be made on that question. But that is assuming that the ancestral lands problem is one of the concerns that the PNCR wants to solve before it participates.
The PNCR should have been smarter and recognized that regardless of whether it participates in state-sponsored events for the IPYAD, the issue of ancestral lands cannot be kept off the agenda for this year. It is going to be raised and the government will then steal the thunder and be seen as addressing the issue without having to be forced by the main opposition. The PNCR’s position that it will not participate unless the concerns of African Guyanese are addressed is therefore self-defeating, because these concerns are going to addressed, and the PNCR will not be at the table when it is being addressed. What will it then claim?
This is why it was ill-advised for the PNCR to have taken the position that it has adopted. It should have stuck to its original stand and claim that since the planning of the IYPAD was done without important stakeholders of the African community, then it feels morally bound not to participate unless this marginalization is corrected.
This would have tested the willingness of the government to involve those who the PNCR feels have been excluded and allowed the party to therefore score a moral victory. As it stands now, the PNCR will remain a spectator in this the International Year of People of African Descent, and for this it can blame nothing else than its tactless stance.

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