Dictatorship means danger: Remembering George Lamming

Jun 11, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – George Lamming died this past week. He is considered by some as the doyen of Caribbean literature. The University of the West Indies has described him as a “Caribbean and global literary luminary, Philosopher King of Post-colonialism, and social justice activist”.
A number of letters have appeared in the local media heralding his achievements and his life. But not many of those have recalled his profound observation about the state of affairs in Guyana at the time of the assassination of Dr. Walter Rodney.
Lamming was not well-known to the present generation of Guyanese even though he was an associate of the late Dr. Walter Rodney. Lamming died at the ripe old age, days shy of his 95th birthday. Walter Rodney was assassinated in 1980 at the still young age of 38 years. He would have been 80 years this year.
Lamming was a literary giant. But he was also a keen social and political analyst. And indeed his poetry combined both his skill with words with his insights as an observer of post-colonial society.
Given his status as an elder, the younger generation – except those with an interest in Caribbean Literature – may be forgiven for not knowing much about Lamming. But older generation will remember him well and will particularly recall the warning he sounded about the dangers of the Burnham dictatorship.
His address at the funeral of Walter Rodney has been reproduced in a book published under his name. Eight years ago, Stabroek News printed Lammings address at Rodney’s funeral.
Lamming warning then is a chilling reminder of the dangers of supporting narratives of dictatorship. Too many Guyanese, both the ignorant and the informed, are peddling this narrative in the hope that somehow it will lead to the justification of the attempt to steal the elections and to return the APNU+AFC to power.
Dictatorship means danger. At the funeral of Walter Rodney, Lamming told the tens of thousands present that: “Today, we meet in a dangerous land, and at the most dangerous of times.”
Indeed, the times were perilous. The Death Squad gunned down persons without any fear of sanction; the Special Branch was ubiquitous. Spies were everywhere, even in classrooms at the University of Guyana. Non-political friends of activists of the Working People’s Alliance were under surveillance. The homes of opposition activists were constantly raided.
A local staff of the Foreign Ministry had attended Queen’s College with Walter Rodney’s colleague, Dr. Rupert Roopnarine. He met Roopnarine on the street outside of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He stopped and had a friendly chat with him – as old school friends do. He was noticed by the PNC’s spy machinery and summoned to give account of his conversation with Roopnarine.
Guyana was a dangerous country. It took tremendous courage for Lamming to jump on a plane in Barbados to come to Guyana for Rodney’s funeral. But this he did despite the dangers involved. That danger was amplified by the knowledge that dictators do not care to account for their conduct. The very act of rigging elections gives them license to commit political atrocities, including political assassination, because they know they only have a slim chance of sanctions.
Lamming was harsh, but just, in his condemnation of the danger which Burnham represented. He said then that the country’s supreme authority had ceased to be answerable to any moral law, had ceased to recognise or respect any minimum requirement of ordinary human decency.
This is the nature of dictatorship. It produces demons. And it was a demon who was the political architect of Rodney’s assassination.
Lamming would go on to write the Foreword for Rodney’s: “A History of the Guyanese Working People: 1881-1905”. Rodney had finished the book just prior to his assassination.
In his foreword, Lamming noted that Guyana had become a land of horrors. For him, the country had passed the stage of placing democracy on trial. What was at stake was whether democracy would survive what Lamming called an “official crucifixion.”
Unlike many of Rodney’s political colleagues, Lamming never developed amnesia about Rodney’s fight against dictatorship. Ten years ago, he detected what he deemed was amnesia of convenience about the assassination of Rodney. As the Guyana Chronicle reported, Lamming bemoaned that a generation of younger Guyanese did not know what the name Walter Rodney meant [stood for].
This amnesia stands as an indictment against Rodney’s party and his colleagues. It must be reversed.
Next Monday, June 13 will mark the 42nd anniversary of the assassination of Walter Rodney. There can be no better way to observe this anniversary than by honouring Lamming and recalling his implicit caution about the dangers of dictatorship.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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