Rohee’s ad hominem attacks are not surprising

Dec 15, 2021 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – Clement Rohee’s response to my piece on Cheddi Jagan adds nothing – absolutely nothing – that bears even perfunctory resemblance to an intelligent discourse on the legacy of Cheddi Jagan (SN, 12/13/21). Like the sycophants before him, he too apparently had no problem with my original piece on Forbes Burnham. The conspicuous ad hominem attacks littered in his letter, like those in the recent missive of former President Donald Ramotar, is not surprising. His invocation of my name, more than 25 times in his 1435 worded letter can only be interpreted as profound disdain of any hint of an objective analysis of our history that is not congruent with the “truth” as told by one of Jagan’s protege. Rohee’s mindset can be traced back to the years of “education” he received in Prague, the former communist Czechoslovakia, presumably while studying to be an “objective” journalist. As a Marxist, he should have known about Marxist/Hegelian dialectics and their application to historical materialism or how established thesis can be transformed when confronted with an anti-thesis.

Drawing quite extensively on Cheddi’s own words, and those of his close confidantes, several historical truths were established. Yet, those who seemingly aspire to be the gatekeepers of Cheddi Jagan’s heritage, Rohee included, refuse to let the facts dictate reality. First, without belabouring the issue of Cheddi’s cultural moorings, the argument was made that had Cheddi been more culturally grounded to the realities of Guyanese social and political culture, or perhaps even those of his own upbringing, he might not have been so enamoured of Soviet communism. He might have been better positioned, or driven to address the country’s most pernicious problem, the racial/ethnic imperative, the perpetuation of which has left Guyanese of all races, especially the Party’s largely Indian supporters, at the mercy of the PNC dictatorship for an uninterrupted 28 years.

Rather, Cheddi saw race/ethnicity as a temporary epiphenomenon, a false consciousness that will be erased by class conflict. There are/were many individuals rooted in Caribbean history who were grounded in Marxist analysis as an epistemological tool, but whose cultural moorings have led them to incorporate the nuances and peculiarities into their analysis of the society in which they live, instead of becoming dogmatically attached to Marxism and Soviet communism. The work and activity of Marxist or anti-colonial social and political activists like Claudia Jones, CLR James, George Lamming, and our own Walter Rodney come to mind.

Rohee’s reference to the cultural moorings of Rev. Dale Bisnauth raises questions as to whether the former Home Affairs Minister actually read or is even vaguely familiar with the writings of Reverend Bisnauth. Drawing from the revelations of Kwayana’s conversation with Naipaul, we can surmise that it was perhaps Bisnauth’s Christian faith transmitted to him through Presbyterianism, which in Guyana was infused and syncretised in Indian culture by the Canadian Mission, that influenced his perspective. Bisnauth’s PhD thesis dealt with the history of Indian Indentureship as he sought to understand his people rather than reflexively reject their culture. He wrote a book on Hinduism and Islam in the Caribbean (he was a minister for 35 years). This orientation provided the moral compass that guided him, and perhaps steered him away from total absolution into doctrinaire Soviet Marxism. In any case, the good reverend, influenced by the tenets of liberation theology, was recruited by Cheddi to serve in the PPP cabinet as a member of the “Civic” component.

Second, Rohee evaded the point made regarding Cheddi’s dogmatic and inflexible Marxist ideology, and his persistent loyalty to the Soviet Empire, which he accepted lock, stock and barrel, since he was steered in that direction by Janet in the 1940s. On August 5, 1985, one day before the death of Forbes Burnham, and on the brink of major fissures in the Soviet Empire, the PPP at its 22nd Congress, adopted a resolution of the Central Committee that deemed the PPP “a Marxist-Leninist type of Party”. Jagan, at the time noted, “We are generally recognised as, and are accorded the status of, a communist party by all other fraternal parties. When we took our momentous decision in 1969, we hardly envisaged the tremendous achievement which we would have made… The PNC has been forced to go a long way to wrest control of our resources from foreign ownership… The prestige of our Party…has never been higher. We can say with confidence at this 22nd Congress that our Party has been transformed into a Communist Party”.

Rohee himself would recognise and admit to the unflinchingly dogmatic posture of the PPP and his leader, and the problem doctrinaire Marxism would create for the PPP in the face of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Writing in the Thunder (September-December 1987), Rohee’s words are quite telling: “…in these times when the Soviet Union is going through a process of reconstruction [perestroika] and openness [glasnost], it is incumbent upon our Party and its cadres to do away with all stereotypes, dogmatic and idealist views and notions about socialism…We must do away with the thinking that lead many of us to believe that ruling parties in socialist countries have a monopoly on truth and are the sole authorities in respect of interpreting Lenin, the Marxist-Leninist theory and in determining what is good and what isn’t good for socialism’s advancement…Our party and its cadres must avoid making the mistake of singling out a particular socialist country’s experience in socialist construction and putting this experience up as a ‘model’ for others to follow or as the ‘standard’ for measurement of progress in one area or another.”

He must have been peeved when Jagan ignored his unsolicited advice regarding the Party’s inflexible dogmatism toward Soviet communism. One year later, in his Report of the Central Committee of the PPP to the 23rd Congress of the Party, at the Empire Cinema, Georgetown (July 30-August 1, 1988), Jagan, dug his heels and stood his ground. He had no choice but to recognise the dismantling of the Soviet Empire. But he remained undaunted, still inspired by his unswerving loyalty to the USSR and Castro’s Cuba. He said, “While applauding the new breath of life being given to socialism in the USSR, we have been following with deep interest the rectification process initiated by the Communist Party of Cuba. And just as we welcome the new approaches being pursued by the Soviet authorities, in the same way, we are confident that the rectification process in Cuba will contribute to the strengthening of socialism in that sister Caribbean country…We cannot underestimate the impact which these developments are having on countries like ours, especially in the ideological sphere where the struggle to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of people over to socialism has become more demanding.” Those were the words of an unassailable, unflinching Cheddi Jagan.

If Rohee’s pathetic response to questions about Jagan’s communist crusade is only met with dismissive and propagandistic efforts to highlight Jagan’s universal human values, while ignoring the human tragedy Cheddi (and Burnham) has bestowed upon us, then Rohee’s missive is a sad commentary on who we are as a nation. This is not diasporic arrogance. It is a brazen attempt to steal our historical memory, held hostage by the sycophants, determined to leave our younger generation bereft of an opportunity to critically assess the leadership handed down to them from an older generation. I leave these words, invoking the Mundaka Upanishad, for the former minister: satyam eva jayate naanritam – truth alone conquers, not untruth.

Sincerely,
Baytoram Ramharack

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