Latest update April 17th, 2025 6:18 AM
Dr. Jagan and the PPP were forced to Resort to ‘Reverse Racism’ to explain the PNC’s policies.
Dear Editor,
Clairmont Lye’s letter ‘Only Solution to Current Problem…’ in another section of the media (SN) on December 05/18, sought to paint the PPP and PNC as being ‘twins of the same political womb’.
In the interest of public information, the PPP evolved in 1950 from the original Political Affairs Committee formed in 1946 by Cheddi Jagan, Janet Jagan, Joycelyn Hubbard and Ashton Chase. The formation of the PPP saw Dr. Cheddi Jagan retain the portfolio of Party Leader, Forbes Burnham as Chairman, and Janet Jagan as General Secretary.
While not all the details are immediately available, Burnham consistently sought to usurp the leadership of the PPP, on one occasion being stopped by Sydney King (Eusi Kwayana). Things deteriorated when Burnham managed to garner enough support to successfully break away from the PPP to form the PNC. The PNC did not win the 1964 elections. It secured support of the United Force with its six seats.
With his ideas in mind, Burnham recognized even then that the PNC could not win an election based on race, which is what he turned our politics into. So began the rigging, and the birth of racial tensions in Guyana.
Dr. Jagan’s PAC and subsequent PPP never started on the issue of race, but on the push to end abuse and exploitation by the British, which ultimately transformed into the push for independence. History records that this was successfully achieved, with both him and Burnham being recognized as our national leaders at the time.
The perception of both parties galvanizing support based on racism is true, but Jagan and the PPP’s resort to ‘racism’ was in fact ‘reverse racism,’ as he and the PPP were stigmatized as racists by the PNC. Jagan and the PPP were forced to inject racism into their politics to explain Burnham and the PNC’s policies and behaviours.
Much of the information here was discovered in Jagan’s book, My Fight For Guyana’s Freedom.
National government, or shared governance (from the little that I have come to understand of it) is a recipe for political and economic disaster, since this is the birth of the end or democracy as we know it, the result being single party rule, and domination of the masses, even as this is being allowed by our present constitution.
Nothing needs to be said about resource ownership, control, or allocation at this point.
Yours faithfully,
Craig Sylvester.
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