PPP, the archetypal ‘memory warrior’

Jun 10, 2024 Letters

Dear Editor

It was hilarious to find Mr. Baytoram Ramharack, who having spent almost his entire article of about a thousand words criticising all and sundry for not doing sufficient to bring Indian history (memory) into the mainstream, in his final paragraph referring to David Hinds and me as ‘memory warriors’ (SN: 05/06/2024)! I suspect that Mr. Ramharack’s contribution was one of those PPP propagandistic ‘dog whistles’ intended to help solidify the party’s Indian support, but I have no problem with being ‘a memory warrior’ if that is what it will take to prevent the PPP from establishing ethnic/political dominance in Guyana.

This writer has never complained, as others with some justifications have done, about the dearth of African history in the general scheme of things. Furthermore, I have never propagated any proposals having to do with any form of African socio/political exclusiveness. What I have done is take affront at the PPP’s Indian ethnically entrenched dash for political dominance, but not without suggesting equitable alternative forms of democratic governance.

Many of the PPP’s associates will have us believe that while it tends to go ‘overboard’, such behaviour is in keeping with normal democratic politics, but this is nonsense. Normal politicians are required to think and do what is good for their country, but contrary to its recently stated goal of building ‘one Guyana’, the behaviour of the PPP has for decades been divisive and destructive.

Nation building is incompatible with majoritarian ethnic political rule in a bicommunal multiethnic society, and even more so under the ethnic dictatorial government of the PPP that perennially seeks to subvert the development of other ethnic expressions. But because of its determination to dominate, the PPP long ago set itself upon an undemocratic pathway.

Under its rule, the judiciary has largely collapsed, destroying the separation of powers, and after not holding local government elections for some two decades after Cheddi Jagan died, since they were reestablished by the APNU+AFC coalition, the PPP has been making every effort to undermine them in its quest for total power. Its mission to subvert the African community is all encompassing and at present is focused on the International Decade for People of African Decent Assembly – Guyana, whose efforts is to uplift African people run counter to the intent of the PPP. In further efforts to stifle African wellbeing, the PPP has for decades suspended constitutionally required collective bargaining in the public service that is largely peopled by Africans. The result is that the average annual salary of teachers, who are mainly Africans, was 3.4 times the per capita GDP of US$860 in 2004 but is now a pittance of that and the PPP is still refusing the judicial exhortation that it respects the constitution.

Amerindians remain the poorest ethnic group in Guyana and the PPP has over the years consistently undermined the growth of independent Amerindian political leadership that could perhaps help Guyana to evolve into more of a genuine multiethnic political society. Of course, as is to be expected from an autocracy, since about the beginning of this century recognising that its traditional ethnic base had deteriorated, the PPP has become involved in massive elections manipulation as the events surrounding the 2020 elections demonstrated. Its legitimacy is widely questioned.

Guyana’s political leadership in general has been weaned on and educated in autocratic environments. One needs only to listen to their usual tirades to know that this is so. For example, now that there is an abundance of wealth, the PPP is set upon dazzling the populace with economic growth and what ‘we are building for you!’ Democracy (various levels of majority rule) is important largely because it is the only equitable means of social self-government and the latter is a most important element of human freedom.

Representative democratic political leaders are facilitators of what the people want and generally that does not come from a single party or its manifesto because a party only usually represents one section of the nation. Liberal democratic self-management comes from a parliamentary meshing of the ideas that are contained in all the manifestoes and by way of meaningful consultations with civil society. It cannot be the outcome of democratic central concoction in which the mishmash of people and ideas are manipulated to fulfill the wishes of the oligarchic leadership or leader! If its behaviour was not corrosive after some thirty years in government, it would not have still been frantically running around seeking to use heightened levels of economic coercion and manipulation to win the support and votes of the other ethnicities.

The undemocratic behaviour of the PPP cannot be blamed on the far from promising recent experience of the APNU+AFC coalition government for, as noted above, the PPP began its descent into political backwardness long before that government came to office! I don’t wish to excuse the behaviour of that regime, whose leadership has also been largely socialised in Guyana’s autocratic environment and whose failure to fulfill its important manifesto commitments is most likely the reason for its short existence in government.

But there is a significant difference between the PPP and Coalition administrations that is of critical importance to a country like Guyana. The PPP and its associates are the archetypical ‘memory warriors’. The party has frequently publicly sought to racialise its ethnic group to hold its support. Its public elections mantra is ‘don’t split the votes;’ its general secretary Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo was charged with racial incitement during the 2015 elections; it frequently holds public inquiries around elections time that allows it to dwell upon negative ethnic behaviour; then there are those such as the 2022 Mon Repos Market fiasco that should have easily been avoided, etc.

Contrary to this type of behaviour, in 2011 and 2015, this column supported APNU because it committed to the establishment of a Government of National Unity, … during the first two years of the first term of the Government (‘Why I support the APNU,’SN: 16/11/2011). To again point the way forward, last week I quoted a USAID report on Guyana that stated: ‘Guyana’s political parties are predominately ethnically homogeneous, exacerbating racial and ethnic tensions… there is no cohesive public pressure for substantive political or electoral reform (or anything else) stemming from the political crisis. International pressure on the two parties for better governance practices is not breaking the stalemate!’

Sincerely
Dr. Henry Jeffrey