Guyana: Ethnic entitlement and class struggle

Dec 25, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – I offer here a theory of ethnic superiority and class competition from British Guiana to Guyana in 2022. I put this theory to Aubrey Norton when he was the guest on the Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show.

The mulatto stratum (MS) and the Creole middle class (CMC) inherited a superiority complex by being the descendants of the house slave system. There is an anthropological distinction between the two categories. The MS puts forward its agenda base on colour.

They are mixed Africans with very light complexion. The CMC consist of both light-coloured and brown and dark Guyanese. What counts for CMC is the possession of high education. Darker CMC members will be accepted culturally if they are dark but have status, education and wealth.

I offered Norton the example of Huge Chomondeley, the father of AFC big-wig, Cathy Hughes. He was extremely dark, which meant he did not have mulatto blood in him but the CMC saw his as part of their class and patronized him heavily. An elitist mulatto like Miles Fitzpatrick was best friend with Chomondoley.

The MS’ and CMC’s basic instinct was ethnic entitlement. They felt they were the inheritors of the post-colonial Caribbean by virtue of Western culture, Western education and class standing. They prepared themselves to take power after the demise of colonialism by forming their own organization – the National Democratic Party (NDP) with MS elitist lawyer, John Carter.

When the PPP was born as a mass-based party with Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham, the MS and CMC ensured that they had representation in the hierarchy of the PPP. They sent a contingent of CMC personalities into the PPP led by Martin Carter. In my opinion, Carter remains one of the most betraying politicians this country produced and certainly, Guyana’s most hypocritical.

The fundamental, quintessential drive of the MS and CMC was to keep East Indians out of political power. Both classes were highly contemptuous of Indians whom they felt were unfit to have any place of importance in Guyanese society. Even a working class fighter like Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow joined with the MS and CMC to reject the franchise for Indians.

The MC and CMC were not enamoured of dark skin Africans but tolerated them for two reasons – they were of African blood and their numbers were needed to take power.

The MC and CMC knew that the PNC under Burnham had the numbers, so they forged an alliance between the PNC and the NDP. Both classes felt Burnham betrayed them and no intention of playing second fiddle to them. In the 1970s, the MS and CMC invented a CMC organization to overthrow Burnham named the Working People’s Alliance. It failed to do so.

The assassination of Rodney drove the MS and CMC into hibernation until it became active again with the assumption to power of a Creole, westernized, neo-liberal President, Desmond Hoyte. The dialectics of social forces were not on the side of Hoyte because international society wanted global democratization. Hoyte lost power in 1992.

The worst fear of the MS and CMC were realized in two ways. The Indians thrown out in 1964 were back in power and the PNC now had a dark skin, working class leader from Linden – Robert Corbin. The MS and CMC derecognized Corbin and formed another CMC entity- the Alliance for Change – with serious members of the crème de la crème of the CMC.

One of the brightest moments of the MS and CMC came about when Corbin surrendered to them and stepped down. Another member of the crème de la crème of the CMC became the head of the PNC – David Granger. At the airport in Nassau, Bahamas, according to Raphael Trotman, he and Granger worked out a class formula for the taking of power. The Indians were once more defeated in 2015.

The dialectics that worked against President Hoyte once more worked against Granger. In 2020, the MS and CMC lost power. Two types of nemesis greeted the MS and CMC in 2020. The Indians were back in power and a dark skin working class leader from Linden was once more the leader of the PNC – Aubrey Norton.

The MS and CMC want nothing to do with Norton. They may remodel the AFC with Dominic Gaskin at the head and at the same time ask the ABCEU embassies to fund another middle class party.

The dialectics cannot be controlled and in 2022, 1984 was reborn. Not 1984 of George Orwell but of Cheddi Jagan and Burnham. In 1984, they attempted class solidarity in a power-sharing model. In 2022, a Jaganite president is reaching out to all strata of African Guyanese with development resources being offered. Norton has two choices. Confront President Ali and lose or repeat 1984 and as Francis Fukuyama described it, Guyana will reach the end of history.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)