Unfortunate that this Trinidadian politician distorts Guyanese history

Aug 26, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

In Kaieteur News yesterday, in the letter pages, famous Trinidadian politician, Trevor Sudama took issue with my description of the role of Guyanese Indians in the tribalist sociology that Indians and African dwell in, and have dwelt in since early 20th century British Guiana. Then he dealt with the politics of the sixties and ended up perpetuating some myths about Cheddi Jagan.
Mr. Sudama contends that my condemnation of the tribalist habits of Guyanese Indians cannot hold, because it was contradicted a long time ago, in 1964, when Indians voted for a party other than the Indian PPP. He refers to The United Force. Mr. Sudama missed the point badly. By tribalist politics in Guyana, we mean the unintellectual embrace by Africans of political parties that are African dominated, and African Guyanese refusal to vote for Indian organizations. The identical replica can be found among Indians here.
What the tribalist mentality does is to foster mistrust and rejection of leadership of another ethnicity on the part of members of a race group. So Indians may look beyond the PPP, but not to a Black organization. Likewise, Blacks may be mad with the PNC, but will not turn to an entity that is dominated by Indians. Sudama lifts the term out of its Guyana context and asserts that my use of it is flawed, because if Indians were tribalist, then how come they voted for The United Force in 1964. That is not true.
Unfortunately, Sudama’s research was too sketchy. The United Force got 12 percent of the ballots in the 1964 elections, and Sudama claims that it showed that Indians voted for another party. First, Indians did not vote for The United Force in 1964 and if they did it, it does not vitiate the tribalist paradigm, because The United Force was a non-African party. The 12 percent that The United Force got, corresponded with the non-Indian, non-African percentage of the population. The Portuguese, Chinese, European and mixed race groups accounted for 18 percent in 1964.
If Sudama had done his research deeply, he would have seen that those statistics are on page 442 of Dr. Jagan’s autobiography, The West on Trial, a book, no doubt, that had a great influence on Mr. Sudama. The United Force got its votes from those ethnic sections in 1964. So poisonous was race relations in 1964, that even though he was a self-proclaimed communist, Indian business people rooted for Dr. Jagan.
One of the stupendous ironies of Guyanese history is that from the time he became active in politics until his death, Cheddi Jagan as an anti-capitalist crusader always had the support of almost all Indian business people, both large and small.
Sudama further takes objection when I wrote in one of my columns that if I meet ten Indians, all would be inclined to reject the rule of the APNU+AFC regime, but out of a similar number for Africans, half would reject and half would support. I stand by that position.
It is outside the scope of the remaining paragraphs to elongate on what is about to follow, but here is what I believe very deeply; the historical, cultural, sociological, religious and philosophical difference between the two major race groups – Africans and Indians – tend to make Africans less attached to their tribalist leaders and ethnic dominated parties.
I believe because of their Guyanese ontology, Africans may be more inclined to embrace a party that is not dominated by African leaders than Indians would. As I wrote above, there is no space to expand on this polemic, but I will gladly elaborate for Mr. Sudama in another column. Maybe in the near future Indians can change, but for now I think, electorally, this is a crucial difference between the two race groups. I agree Indians have been traumatized by the long rule of the PNC under Burnham, but the new Indian generation should have left those emotions behind in the 21st century.
As for Sudama’s take on the sixties, space has run out, but there are myths about Jagan that Sudama needs to be careful with. Dr. Jagan signed for proportional representation in 1964 and cried foul when he lost. Secondly, it was absolutely and perfectly legal for parties to form a coalition after elections at that time and up to this day.
People like Sudama would want us to believe that in 1964 Jagan was a leader with total, national support. What about the feelings of half of the population that did not support him and did not vote for him? It is the same with Burnham. Half the population never liked him and still doesn’t.

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Unfortunate that this Trinidadian politician distorts Guyanese history

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