Latest update January 28th, 2025 12:59 AM
Mar 10, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
Kaieteur News – Last year, I wrote that, given the muted observance for his 24th death anniversary, Cheddi Jagan had become an afterthought. This year, on his 25th death anniversary his party leadership treated him with thoughtlessness.
Last year, an activity was held at Babu Jaan, the place where Cheddi’s remains were cremated and a monument erected to his memory. Most of the top leadership, which in the past would have scrambled to be in Berbice were missing in action.
This was quite uncharacteristic given the attention which has traditionally been paid to death anniversaries of the party’s leaders. But one explanation was that the leadership top-brass was waiting for this year, the 25th anniversary of his death to have a grand event at Babu Jaan.
That was a misthought. This year’s 25th death anniversary observance was flatter than a pancake.
In 2005, the 25th death anniversary of Dr. Walter Rodney witnessed a series of events in Guyana. A great deal of planning and resources went into those events.
The highpoint was a ceremony at Queen’s College attended by a number of regional big wigs including the Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, a compatriot of Rodney. Then President Bharrat Jagdeo was also present at that full-house ceremony.
Observances were also held in other countries. In the United Kingdom, Professor Hilary Beckles was slated to give the feature address at one such observance.
In Guyana, the small gathering of party faithful which assembled at Babu Jaan to commemorate Cheddi’s 25th death anniversary had to settle for Zulfikar Mustapha, the Minister of Agriculture. He also was the feature presenter at last year’s quite wreath-laying ceremony.
The Silver Jubilee of Cheddi Jagan’s death was damp squib instead of a grand reflection on his life. Better could and should have been done.
Cheddi’s greatest legacy was the PPP. Yet, 25 years after he closed his eyes for the last time, his party has virtually abandoned him. How inexcusable for such a major anniversary to pass with such a low-key ceremony. It is shocking and it is a disgrace.
As I said last year, Cheddi Jagan was the central figure in the party for more than 50 years. Those who presently hold political power in Guyana are supposed to be eternally indebted to him. But it appears as if some of them believe that they are bigger and better than Cheddi.
The PPP is no longer true to the founding principles of Cheddi. It has lost its working class moorings and is now firmly wedded into the bourgeoisie class. Some of its leaders are landlords and have super-rich tenants while many poor people still struggle for affordable housing.
It now appears that Cheddi has been abandoned by both the new guard and the old guard. The latter has surrendered; they have no bark and definitely no bite. Only a handful of them were present at Babu John last weekend.
Again I ask, why were more persons from the upper echelons of the PPP leadership not be at Babu Jaan. Is the PPP now ‘dissing’ Cheddi?
We were told that Cheddi’s teachings were still relevant. But how relevant can these be when up to now we are yet to learn how much money the Sugar Packaging facility at Enmore is being leased for? How relevant is the teachings of Cheddi when GuySuCo, having given up this facility, now has to go and build another one at Albion, no doubt to the tune of hundreds of millions, to house the packaging machinery which will be relocated from Enmore?
Let us not forget the significance to Enmore to Cheddi’s political development. It was after the Enmore martyrs tragedy that Cheddi dedicated himself to the struggles for colonial liberation.
The PPP/C has drifted further and further away from this original commitment to the working class. It is for this reason that it is believed that the party’s matriarch, Mrs. Janet Jagan, died a bitter woman. She was deeply aggrieved after she was called a private citizen by a party leader, whom she virtually handpicked for the position of President. She died gravely concerned that certain individuals were being catapulted to high office and those persons had played no part in the party’s struggle for free and fair elections.
Were both she and Cheddi alive, they would have questioned the working class committee men (or rather the lack of it) of the incumbent PPP/C government. They would have urged more decisive action to ease the financial burdens on workers
But they are not here. And it appears as if Cheddi is now reduced to a footnote.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
Jan 28, 2025
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