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My nightmarish fears about the 2016 elections
On Thursday afternoon, after a date was set for the resumption of the Bharrat Jagdeo- Frederick Kissoon libel case, I stopped by Khemraj Ramjattan’s car to chat about all types of topics in Guyana including family – my daughter and Khemraj’s son went to the same high school and sat in the same class.
I asked Khemraj what will become of Guyana if the PPP wins a majority in the 2016 election? Khemraj intoned that if it is a legitimate process then how do you respond? Before I could reply, a gentleman came up to ask a question, and one thing led to another and I didn’t get to express my fears about the 2016 general election.
There are two large trepidations I have about the next national poll one of course being scarier than the other. I will start with the second one and leave the first one for another column. In the first one, I will argue that if the PPP wins a majority, there will be incredible hubris and hauteur and the opposition will be completely ignored. Let’s look at the second one.
From the time the PPP declared shortly after the 2011 election that PPP supporters were prevented from voting in Georgetown by opposition elements, the PPP had given away its strategy for confronting its minority status in the legislature – use the race card.
Then came the horrible Chronicle editorial for which there was no apology from the PPP leadership. That commentary argued that African youths have been socialized to hate Guyanese Indians.
Strangely, the PNC, AFC, ACDA, human rights groups, the churches and UG academics did not mount an energetic campaign against this vicious dogma.
Sometimes you wonder if the PPP ever thinks about the danger it creates in Guyana when it mounts its racist bandwagon. If African youths have been socialized to hate Indians, then how come after twenty-one years of PPP domination of Guyana we haven’t seen this hate and anti-Indian attitude from African police and African soldiers?
But let’s move on. Then came the milking of the Agricola violence last year. The PPP’s race baiters were in full battle dress. A deadly instrument in instigating race hate was used by PPP parliamentarians and the state media – Indian girls were molested on the highway during the confusion. If you want to see ethnic riots get out of hand just take your loudspeaker and announce to the village that girls have been sexually molested. One PPP parliamentarian said just that in Parliament.
As recent as last week, racist interpretations were put to the spate of robberies in the countryside (see my last Sunday column). The second of the two fears I have about 2016 is that the PPP will go to extreme lengths to use racial hysteria to either win the election or win the plurality.
My prediction is that there will be no re-thinking, no reflection on the inherent danger, no pause. The PPP election bandwagon will be to engender as much ethnic panic as is politically possible. All the signals are there. If between the beginning of 2012 and the advanced stage of 2013, a period we call “peace time” when elections are still far off, there have been ugly episodes of racist pandering, does anyone think the PPP will slow down as we come to late 2015 when the election season begins to take shape?
What can be done? Both opposition party and civil society have to confront this ghost. But more importantly the business community will have to be made to understand that an investment climate is never secure when a society lives with the sword of Damocles over its head. I read where a columnist who has no interest in politics wrote that a Guyanese who wants to return home asked him what the fault lines are in Guyana, and he said he had to confess to her that the ethnic divide is something to be aware of.
The real, real danger with ethnic pandering in multi-racial societies is that racial violence is not something politicians, no matter how popular they are, could contain. Once word spread, all hell breaks loose as the world saw in Gujarat, India years ago. Race anger has the negative value of just getting out of hand. For this reason, I argued last Sunday that it was irresponsible for certain individuals and organizations to cite race as a factor in the recent spate of robberies. Suppose there was retaliation? I believe all Guyanese should speak out before 2016 comes.
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