Schooled by Dr. Jagan

Mar 07, 2019 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,

The people of Guyana are currently marking the 22nd death anniversary of Dr. Cheddi Jagan.
This is an event that calls for reflection on Dr. Jagan’s life and work.
But it is not only members of the PPP who are observing this event. There are many others in our midst who write and speak about Dr. Jagan, his role and place in Guyana’s political life.
Nowadays, it is in vogue by some who once wrote and made hate speeches about Dr. Jagan to now sing praises to him knowing full well that he is dead and gone and consequently, dead men tell no tales.
As we mark the 22nd year of Dr. Jagan’s passing, I am taking the opportunity to recall just three of the many instances that I shared with him.
The first was during a visit to Cuba as General Secretary of the PPP to participate in an international conference on la deuda externa or the foreign debt.
After the conference, a bilateral meeting took place late one night between Fidel Castro and Dr. Jagan. The meeting lasted until the wee hours of the following morning.
During that meeting at which I was present, the two leaders held wide-ranging discussions on agricultural, economic, political and environmental issues.
On our way back to the hotel, I asked Dr. Jagan how come Castro, being a lawyer and he (Dr. Jagan) being a dentist, yet they knew so well, and in great detail the matters they discussed in great detail? Dr. Jagan turned to me with that famous smile on his face and said, “All you have to do is to apply yourself.”
The second was how pleasantly surprised Dr. Jagan was on the eve of the ‘92 elections, when he learnt about a statement issued by Arthur Schlesinger Jnr. the historian and former adviser to President John F. Kennedy, that US policy towards Guyana was flawed, that ‘a great injustice was done to Dr. Jagan’ by engineering his removal from office and for him being in the political wilderness for 28 years.
Dr. Jagan felt vindicated.
Thirdly, I was fortunate to accompany Dr. Jagan on his lobbying missions to Washington, Ottawa, London and Jamaica for free and fair elections in Guyana.
During those trips, I witnessed at first-hand how Dr. Jagan was able to convince key decision makers and key stakeholders at those capitals, to support the struggle for free and fair elections in Guyana. In his own inimitable style, he did it the Cheddi Jagan way. And it paid off.
And so, if it is for these and other reasons that some are branded Jaganites.
It is a proud name brand not to be ashamed of.
Jagan is dead and gone yes, but he left a legacy, which many continue to hold onto tenaciously, others either play it down, shun it or trample upon it.
After 22 years, we still hear calumnies like ‘Jagan made mistakes,’ ‘Jagan’s time is long past’, ‘or that it was ‘Jagan’s communism that made Guyana fail’.
It is as if those critiquing Jagan wanted to make him the perfect man in their own image or to be someone who never lived in a glasshouse but to whom they wanted to throw stones.
And while ‘amazing’ is not a favourite adjective of mine, I must concede that it is really amazing to read the pontifications of the Monday quarterbacks as they continue unabashedly, to claim superior in both knowledge and analytical skills compared to Jagan’s.
If today, Marx’s life work is not above criticism nor condemnation, it follows that Jagan’s life work can never be above criticism nor condemnation. What is of interest however is the fact that the Monday quarterbacks were around while Dr. Jagan was alive and well, yet they never considered it appropriate nor wise at that time to utter neither a squeak nor a squawk critical of his views.
Strangely, it was only with his passing, the ‘post Jagan specialists’ and ‘born again democrats’ emerged from the woodwork critiquing and analyzing Jagan to such an extent that some have even hijacked his ‘Straight Talk’ trade mark.
Perhaps the anti-Jagan analysts were too young and wet behind the ears at the time of Dr. Jagan’s political and ideological activism and could not, through no fault of theirs, benefit from his schooling.
And so, now that that defining period of Jagan’s life work has been included as a new chapter in the annals of Guyana’s political history, Jagan’s core values, beliefs, ethics and morals, as well as his humanist approach to developmental economics and politics, will no doubt continue to challenge the dominant neo-liberal ideological flavour of the day.
Jagan is long dead and gone, he cannot therefore be held responsible for the distorted values that shape anyone’s view under present day conditions.
To blame him for things done in a less enlightened time using the standards of today is to set the bar too high.
To leave a legacy is to gift something of meaning or value. Cheddi Jagan gifted something of meaning and value to the Guyanese nation.
That gift must be translated into racial/ethnic and class balance, along with ideological pluralism in a national democratic state.
This must be solidified by regular and meaningful consultations with opposition political parties, private sector organizations, trade unions, and other non-governmental organizations, including religious/cultural bodies within the context of parliamentary democracy, the rule of law and the supremacy of the constitution.

Yours faithfully,
Clement J. Rohee

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