We tie ourselves up in knots

Feb 02, 2020 Features / Columnists, Hinds' Sight with Dr. David Hinds

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The demise of the Grenada Revolution in 1983 and the subsequent passing of the Cold War by the end of that decade, meant that Radical Left-Wing politics had to undergo significant changes. In the Caribbean, most of the Left retreated into their shells while others went into single-issue politics.
The truth is that the post-Grenada Caribbean has not been friendly to Radical Politics. Left-Wing progressive political experiments were deemed a colossal failure. The region became more open to a simplistic form of politics in which form matters more than substance.
Here in Guyana, all the Coalition’s detractors and almost all the public independent voices have bought into the thesis and narrative that APNU and the APNU+AFC Coalition are nothing more than fronts for the PNC. The message is simple: If you vote for the Coalition, you are voting for the PNC.
One understands why the PPP centres that message. After all, for reasons known to all, the PNC is poison to the overwhelming majority of the PPP’s traditional constituency. So, after the migration of some of its supporters to the AFC at the 2011 and 2015 elections, the PPP is adamant that 2020 would be different.
But I am somewhat surprised that independent voices have bought into narrative with such gusto. There is more than a hint of contradiction. On the one hand, they argue that the PNC cannot win a free and fair election. Yet they do not credit the other parties in the Coalition with contributing much to the 2015 victory.
The logic is simple. The PNC cannot win an election on its own. The AFC’s votes have gone back to the PPP. The WPA brings no votes. The other parties are insignificant. So, should the Coalition win the upcoming election, it wouldn’t be a fair victory—the Coalition can only win if the elections are rigged.
These are the knots in which we tie ourselves. I can understand the strong temptation to believe that the Coalition is the PNC and the PNC is the Coalition. After all, more often than not, the PNC publicly and privately behaves in that way—it feeds the narrative.
One often asks why the PNC leaders don’t see the wisdom in toning down the vibes that give rise to that perception. But then again, the PNC is still in competition with the PPP, so it has to project itself in that way.
The truth is that many of these independent voices advocate for coalition politics or forms of shared governance. They also support Third Parties as a way of breaking the monopoly of the two big parties. But the contradiction is so normative that they don’t recognize it. They don’t recognize that the formation of APNU and the evolution of APNU+AFC, have in many regards altered the face of Guyanese politics, even if that has not yet translated into transformation of the soul. One has to go among the people to understand the extent to which some of them identify with APNU and the Coalition.
Yet persons are allowing their disappointment with the performance of the APNU+AFC government to cloud their recognition of its positive manifestation. Perhaps it is asking too much for us to go beyond our politics of binaries, of good versus evil.
Political maturity dictates a movement away from zero-sum politics. Yet, we create things and are prepared to dispense with them if they do not instantly realize our dreams. We are hesitant to contend with our complexities, resulting in our oversimplification of our reality.
President Granger’s announcement this past week that the Coalition has finally embraced Cash Transfers as part of its menu of policies should it win the coming election, has not elicited much recognition of the WPA’s singular role in putting the idea on the table.
Had the president announced the Coalition’s rejection of the idea as some expected, the roasting of the WPA would have been the headlines of most of the media. There would have been renewed calls for the WPA to leave the Coalition and commentaries of Walter Rodney’s activity in his grave.
The truth is that Cash Transfer is the single most creative policy proposal that looks out for the interest of the working classes and the poor. And it comes from a so-called non-party in the coalition. I am positing now that if the Coalition wins the election, it would be due in no small way to the promise to empower the poor through the cash transfers. And I am prepared to say now that the opinion-shapers would still say that WPA brought no votes to the victory.
Are we doomed forever to over-credit the very thing that we want to eradicate? We over-credit the hegemony of big parties while we proclaim our opposition to that hegemony. The age of radical revolution in the Caribbean has passed for now. It is incumbent for revolutionaries to find new ways of advancing revolutionary ideas and agendas.
The WPA put forward the most revolutionary idea of this election cycle. It defended it against the worst forms of cynicism and ignorance in public and behind the scenes. In the end, both the PPP and the Coalition adopted it, with the latter being more forthright.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)
More of Dr. Hinds’ writings and commentaries can be found on his YouTube Channel Hinds’ Sight: Dr. David Hinds’ Guyana-Caribbean Politics and on his website www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.news. Send comments to dhinds6106@aol.com

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