That inevitable wicked omission in defense of Burnham

Jun 18, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – It comes up all the time whenever Burnham’s aficionados write and speak in defense of him. The abominable omission is always there, always in graphic form projecting its ugly mediocrity, always cynically disrespecting the oceanic, mountainous and tsunamic facts that have devastated and destroyed the mind, soul, psyche and body of so many hapless Guyanese.
A few weeks ago, I came face to face with the inevitable, wicked omission that has been buried so deeply in the hearts of the Burnhamite aficionados that they are unable to see that immense depravity they burden themselves with. None of the emails of the admirers came from Guyana. They were from the diaspora. Interestingly enough all centred on the banning of important foodstuff under Burnham.
Two of the emails are from persons I have known who are long gone from Guyana. I will quote from one of them’ “Freddie you of all people who want people to buy local disparaging Burnham buy local campaign.” These email-senders were referring to my recent column on Burnham. I did nothing of the sort.
In clarifying what I wrote in that article, a preface is necessary. These outputs of mine in the Kaieteur News will be in existence long after I am gone and subsequent generations would know how I felt about Burnham. I want them to know, I dislike Forbes Burnham intensely. I think Forbes Burnham was a terrible man that should have been removed by either the PPP or the WPA.
Burnham refused to let me work in my own country in 1978 and in 1984 when I returned home from Grenada. The fatwa he applied to an innocent woman who never said a word about Burnham – my wife. Now for my take on the inevitable, wicked omission.
Those who accept that Burnham was far-sighted, refuse to concede that he had no moral and legal mandate to go in the directions he went into even if theoretically those pathways would have been transformative. For the record, I support the following under Burnham from a theoretical perspective:
1 – Replacement of foreign foods by local production
2 – National service to give youths a chance of a successful future
3 – Multi-lateral schools
4 – Emphasis on hydro-power
These things were good but they had three inherent non-starters about them. (1) They were being implemented by a leader who had no mandate from half the population who hated him and saw another leader as the man who would have won the national elections. (2) Policies that had adverse impact on the population were never conceived out of consultations with stakeholders. (3) The shape of many of the pathways had congenital flaws but Burnham insisted on them because of his outsized ego.
Let’s discuss two of them. First, compulsory National Service (NS) for UG students. The humane, decent and democratic thing to do was to phase out fee-paying. So you announce to the nation that come the new academic year, UG would replace fees with compulsory NS. It meant you allow current fee-paying students to continue. In one swoop, Burnham coercively introduced NS. Who gave him the electoral mandate to do that?
Let’s look at one instance of the democratic credential of the past PPP government. School of the Nations requested the re-placement of CXC with Cambridge University’s GCE system. There was dialogue on the matter with all concerned including parents. My wife and I sat in the audience next to the second most powerful man in the PPP government, Dr. Roger Luncheon. He opposed the change and so did I. But the government allowed the Cambridge formula anyway.
Secondly, the food ban. Burnham did not see the need to dialogue with anyone. He arrogated to himself the right to determine which food should be embargoed. The grow your-own-food-campaign was sensible but people hated Burnham for the right reasons so they opposed many of the right ideas he had.
Non-compulsory NS and food replacement should be returned. But the people and their parliamentary representatives must be asked for their ideas. If they reject it then that is what democracy is all about. The prime minister of Hungary is a right-wing populist Trumpian hardliner. But he has won four consecutive elections. He can say: “hate me as much as you like, you have to beat me at the polls.” Burnham did not win any election from 1968 yet he shaped the way Guyanese had to live.
I have seen several prominent Burnhamite aficionados on Zoom programmes and in the Village Voice online newspaper wax lyrical about the greatness of Burnham and in the same breath condemn every PPP government from 1992, including the Ali presidency, as undemocratic. Well maybe one explanation is at work – race.
(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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