Intolerance

Mar 30, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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“Our task therefore, comrades, is to push on with our endeavours of revolutionizing our entire society. Concomitant with this, however, must be our ability to identify our class enemies and to impose imprisonment or death upon them depending on their level of counter-revolutionary activities.”
Recently declassified documents have recalled that this statement formed part of a New Year’s message for 1979, issued by the youth arm of the People’s National Congress, the Young Socialist Movement (YSM). The person who declassified documents attributed as the source of the statement is still alive, and is active politically within the present coalition government.
The United States Embassy in Guyana took note of the statement in 1979 because of its call for imprisonment and death for the class enemies of the PNC and because of the coincidence of these remarks with Guyana entering into negotiations with the International Monetary Fund.
The language of that New Year’s message showed the high degree of political intolerance within the then PNC. Interestingly, this statement was made during the height of the civil rebellion launched by the Working People’s Alliance (WPA).
It was made before Burnham’s public warning to the leaders of the WPA that they should make their wills, because they had entered the amphitheatre, and that one of them had to die and the PNC was going to survive.
While the statement by the YSM was interpreted as addressing the class enemies of the so-called PNC revolution, it had to have had some effect on the mindset of the supporters of the PNC against all enemies of the party, including possibly the WPA.
Why was this extreme language necessary? It just shows how politically intolerant PNC rule was in Guyana, something that the new coalition government should try to avoid since the PNC, the main partner in APNU, carries with it the historic baggage, not just of intolerance and political persecution, but also rigged elections and undemocratic conduct.
For months now, the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) of Region 5 has had to cancel its monthly statutory meetings because persons connected with the ruling APNU+AFC have taken to disrupting the holding of these meetings. Their grouse is that the Chairman of the Region snubbed the President of Guyana when he visited the region to hand over a school bus. The persons who are refusing to allow the statutory meeting of the Council to be held are demanding that the Chairman of the Region apologize to the President.
It is interesting that the President of Guyana, himself, has not called for an apology, but his supporters are insisting that the Chairman issue an apology to the President. In pursuit of this objective, they are disrupting the meetings of the council, and thereby hindering the work of the Region.
They seem to have ignored the fact that both the President and the Regional Chairman are elected officials. The President is elected at general elections and the Chairman is elected at a meeting of councilors who are elected at regional elections. Both are political appointees, and it is quite possible that they can come from different sides of the political fence.
The Chairman of Region 5 is from the People’s Progressive Party. The PPP has made no official statement indicating that it is in protest mode, and that it has urged its Chairpersons to boycott events attended by the President. However, the reality is that the PPP is upset over some of the actions of the new government, which it has described as a political witch hunt.  It could well be that the absence of the PPPC regional chairpersons at events at which the President is present, is a form of protest action. It could be.
The right to protest is a constitutionally guaranteed right. Any action aimed at punishing person’s exercising this right is ultra vires of the constitution. Those who are preventing the Regional Democratic Council of Region 5 from meeting do not seem to be aware that their actions represent an assault on the freedom of individuals to protest. The disruptors are protesting against the right of others to protest.
There is no convention that a Chairperson of a region has to be present whenever a President visits a Region. It is a common courtesy for the Regional Chairman to be present, but there is no convention that compels him or her to be present. There is no obligation for a Regional Chairman to be present whenever the President visits his or her region.
But there is a far more compelling reason why the Chairman of Region 5 should have stayed away from the activity organized by the activity of the handing over of a bus to the Region. This activity was converted to a political rally. Partisan speeches were made. The colours of the bus and the colours of the decorations used were the colours of the ruling coalition. The speeches were laced with partisan rhetoric. How can any Regional Chairman from another party be expected to participate in something like that?
This is one of the criticisms being made about the distribution of these buses. The handing over of these buses was done at partisan rallies. How can a Regional Chairman for the PPP be expected to attend a rally of APNU+AFC?
The danger of the actions taken by those who are refusing to allow the RDC to meet until an apology is offered, is that it represents the same sort of intolerance that was evident in Guyana in 1979. History is repeating itself in dangerous ways.

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