This so-called swami sees an ethnic factor in all political dynamics

May 07, 2015 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
There is a third letter from Aksharananda (“Who in the coalition will speak for Indians?” SN, May 4) and the pattern is confirmed. He is penning the most distorted sociological observations in service of the perceived Indian party, the PPP, in the election campaign, and it has come to a point where there is disdainful dismissal by Aksharananda of even a modicum of intellectual pretense.
In my two previous replies, I accused him of composing propaganda and passing it off as analysis. It gets worse with each published submission of Aksharananda. This so-called swami is preaching race hate. I now provide his quotes with a rebuttal to each.
Quote 1- “The present PNC-WPA outfit has a significant number of African intellectuals, scholars, and activists who are quite vociferous when it comes to ethnic honour and for whom the “furtherance and defence of African Guyanese interests is an important plank in their political and public life. What is more, this group of individuals seeks to connect ethnic interests with national interests…” (end of quote)
If I was an African Guyanese, I would have rejected these African-rights activists, because an Indian government has been in power for just under twenty-three years and in that time there have been colossal reductions to the point of extirpation of the African political economy.  So where is the success of their African-rights activism?
Only an Indian racist researcher or a scholar who is a PPP aficionado would deny the role of racism in the exercise of state power since Independence and the PPP has practiced such racism. I recommend my research, “Ethnic Power and Ideological Racism: Comparing presidencies in Guyana.” I take the liberty of saying it documents the marginalization of African Guyanese.
Before I move to quote two, readers must be informed that Aksharananda may write a million more letters, but none will mention Desmond Hoyte, because the Hoyte experience in post-colonial governance destroys all the concepts Aksharananda employs to support the continuation of PPP in office.
Quote 2 – “The counter-argument could be made that it is Indians themselves who must make this argument, who must speak for themselves, who must represent themselves. But as we have seen, throughout the last sixty years or so, whenever any Indian attempts to do so, he is ground in the dust and destroyed.” (end of quote)
This is a journey into barefaced fictionalization of Guyanese political history
It is the other way around. African politicians have shied away from accusing the PPP Government for the past twenty-three years of racism against Afro-Guyanese because of fear of being labeled an African party. The PNC has been on a long cruise of wanting to be seen as a national party and seeks not to invoke the wrath of Indians, hence the pacification polices of the last three successive PNC leaders, Hoyte, Corbin and Granger
For Aksharananda to say that for the last sixty years when Indians have tried to assert their Indian existence they have been confronted and harmed is hateful nonsense. The PPP has never hid its overt Indian biology. And Walter Rodney and the WPA made mistakes in tolerating that political weakness of Cheddi Jagan.
No one has mentioned it as yet and I am doing so now. Forbes Burnham was angry with Walter Rodney because he felt Rodney was encouraging an Indian party instead of distancing himself from such a formation. This was definitely a mistake of Walter. He naïvely overlooked the ethnic politics of the PPP while trying to weaken the PNC. Burnham felt Rodney was an opportunist in that regard. I think Burnham may have been right, but I would say that Walter was more emotional, naïve and personal in his politics than opportunistic.
Quote 3 –  “Further, because of the systematic conditioning to which Indians have been subjected, there is nothing that an Indian fears most in Guyana than being called a racist, which is the label for those who dare to speak their truth. It follows that there is nothing an Indian is not prepared to do just not be labeled a racist, even to the point of purging himself of his ethnic identity.” (end of quote)
This is a figment of Aksharananda imagination. Since it got into power in 1992, the PPP itself, the PPP Government and its biological siblings – GAWU, NAACIE, Indian Arrival Committee, Guyana Rice Producers Association and others have not shied away from graphic identification with Indianness and Indian culture. For any observer of politics to say that Indian politicians have been afraid since the PPP came to power to assert their Indian identity is comical
Quote 4 – “Africans intellectuals however have no such inhibition. One recalls the near hysteria that was created when Nagamootoo was proposed as the presidential candidate for the yet to be formed coalition.   No one could fail to see the argument that was advanced on the basis of ethnic honour why he would not be acceptable to Africans.” (end of quote)
It is irritating to read Aksharananda muchless to reply to him. This man sees an ethnic factor in all political dynamics. The AFC had 7 seats, the APNU 26. The APNU was the much larger organization and one with more mass support. It would have been difficult to sell a Nagamootoo presidency on the coalition ticket to APNU supporters because they would have asked why not Granger from the larger partner.
As for me, I still think for strategic reasons, Moses should have been the presidential candidate. But I am totally and a thousand percent approving of David Granger as the presidential candidate
There is much more to be written about the poison in Aksharananda’s polemics but more of my rebuttals are forthcoming
Frederick Kissoon

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