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Anil Nandlall sent Kaieteur News a coin with one of its two faces rubbed off

Dec 23, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Anil Nandlall published a letter in the Kaieteur News last Monday (December 19) with the heading, “PPP Government in the 50s and after 1992 developed Guyana.” I will come to the letter in a few paragraphs. But first a little digression. I taught Anil Nandlall when he was a student at UG, and I would say most honestly; any of his teachers could have seen that he would have turned out to be very successful in the career he pursued. I saw a competent intellectual in Nandlall. I wasn’t wrong. I believe he has a fine legal mind.
Even though I found his immersion in the PPP and his conduct in politics extremely unpalatable, I will not take away his fine analytical ability. But I am wondering if he has joined the ranks of intellectually barren PPP leaders on a list headed by people like Clement Rohee and Donald Ramotar. The letter in question is unworthy of a quality lawyer like Nandlall. It is infantile and silly, and bound to bring derision on Nandlall. People with a sound education in politics should not write such childish ramblings.
Here is a quote from the letter; “Whenever the PPP is in Government there is economic progress and freedom in this country; and whenever the PNC is in Government there is economic decline and authoritarianism.”
Nandlall could be accused of preaching an extreme form of genetic superiority, and there has been nothing superior about the politics of the PPP since the split between Jagan and Burnham. The PPP ruled for 31 years — from 1956 to 1964, then from 1992 to 2015. The PNC was in government for 30 years beginning 1964 to 1992 then from 2015 to the present time. The dates show that they have the same amount of years in their domination of Guyana.
It is foolish and unworthy of a trained mind to say it was 31 years of progress under the PPP with economic development and democracy, and it has been 30 years of stagnation and dictatorship under the PNC. If you read the entire letter you will do to Nandlall what you do to Rohee and Ramotar when they write their letters to the newspapers – laugh.
The entire letter waxes lyrical on the 31 years of PPP’s achievements, and by contrast, is a total dismissal of the elegant and superb record of Burnham’s economic and infrastructural accomplishments and the phenomenal transformational politics of Desmond Hoyte, that puts him as of the most courageous leaders of the post-colonial world.
Historians must reply to Nandlall, because innocent young minds in the PPP enclaves all over this country may believe Nandlall. How can any decent analyst dismiss the fantastic balance sheet of Burnham – UG at Turkeyen, NIS, Linden Highway, Demerara Harbour Bridge, Canje Bridge, MMA, National Park, religious holidays, CARICOM Secretariat, indigenous commercial banking, Cyril Potter’s College, free water, free education from nursery to tertiary; local manufacturing. The list is definitely too long.
Desmond Hoyte had a greater appreciation for the value and worth of democratic institutions than any of the PPP’s presidents – Jagan, his wife, Jagdeo and Ramotar. Desmond Hoyte was one of the great risk-takers in world politics. Sadly the textbook doesn’t give him credit for that. There is a section of Nandlall’s letter in which he really descends to clownish levels, and that is so unfortunate, because he is capable of higher and more profound thinking.
Here is that section. “In two short years, the equation has changed drastically. From all indications authoritarianism is on the rise again.” Pay attention to the word ‘again.’ By again, he meant when Burnham and Hoyte were presidents, that is, when the PNC was in power. Now if in 31 years of power, there weren’t authoritarian features in successive PPP governments, but in just 18 months of the PNC back in power, there is dictatorship, then we have a simple case of genetic superiority.
This is what Nandlall is saying. The people who make up the PPP are by nature good people that produce good governments, and have done so whenever they were in government. The people that make up the PNC are bad people, have produced bad governments when they were in power, and will always produce bad governments.
Now surely Mohabir, either that observation is racist or infantile. It could be both. Now where does that leave the historian? How do African Guyanese who comprise half the population feel about its leaders being genetically unfit to produce good government? The historian I think is livid. It isn’t funny Mohabir. Don’t toy with history, Mohabir.

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