Alliance For Change (AFC) Leader Raphael Trotman says the life of the country’s first Executive President, Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham, had to be viewed in the context of the era he operated in.

Trotman was speaking during last Thursday’s marathon session in Parliament on a motion to recognize the achievements of Burnham which eventually won unanimous support.

A collection of MPs from both sides of the house recounted and evaluated the presidential tenure and the wider role of Burnham during the six-hour debate.
Leader of the main opposition PNCR, Robert Corbin delivered a lengthy presentation which sought to put into perspective the work and historical presence of Forbes Burnham.

Corbin underpinned his presentation with his previous call for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the discontinuance of a “vicious cycle” and the promotion and achievement of cohesion. 

Corbin posited that the “unanimous support” and acceptance of the motion by the legislature would signal “a significant development and maturity demonstrating that we are prepared in a non partisan way to give credit where it is due and ensure that future generations can dispassionately judge from the facts, make their own analysis and arrive at their own interpretation of our history.”

Corbin stated that the death of Burnham “brought to an end the life of a man who had to his credit a distinguished academic career, he earned the accolade as a luminary in the legal profession, a leading fighter against colonialism and in the struggle for Guyana’s political independence.”

Corbin quoted the position of historian, Dr. Mellisa Ifill writing in the Stabroek New of March 6th 2003 who said “few individuals in Guyanese history, more so political history, have generated such controversy as Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham. Moreover, few individuals have had such a lasting impact on the structure and character of Guyanese society. For many analysts respect for his intellectual capacity and achievement and his ability to catapult Guyana into regional and international prominence…Burnham, in both life and death aroused both admiration and scorn, he was revered and ridiculed, perceived as a deity and a demon…”

Corbin also quoted from Tyrone Ferguson’s book To Survive Sensibly Or To Court Heroic Death, Management of Guyana’s political Economy 1965 to 1985: “The fundamental contention is that a major… obstacle to the attainment of such a national consensus is the interpretation of political economy events spanning the four and a half decades from 1953 to the present. More pointedly, an integral element if not the important factor is the interpretation of the reality of Burnham’s and his party’s rule. Put another way, the basic argument is that any project aimed at national reconciliation and the forging of a broad based consensus for better and more effective governance in Guyana is vitally predicated on a coming to terms with Burnham’s legacy. It necessitates a frontal, frank and dispassionate assessment of that legacy stripped of the partisan and deeply personal animosities that have so far governed so much of the commentary and analysis of that era and that in fact influence for the worse the behaviour of the respective leadership of the main ethnic groups in the society.” 

Corbin continued that the point being made is that unless we are able to dispel the negative myths and come to terms with our history, there is very little hope for stability in this country. “Whether we accept it or not, Guyana is a nation in deep crisis. Every day, we move closer to the brink. We have basically two options available to us. One option is to sit back and do nothing and witness the steady deterioration into chaos and self destruction. The other is to accept our responsibility, determine what is required, enlist all the professional and other support that is needed and work diligently to ensure that Guyana takes its rightful place respected among all the nations of the region and the world.  The question is whether we have the vision and will to find permanent solutions.”  
Corbin argued that the young people are concerned about the future and it is that which responsible leaders must now address.
Prime Minister Sam Hinds commenced his address proclaiming his approval of the motion. “I rise in this debate to give support to the call for due recognition for Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham for his extraordinary and outstanding career as a Guyanese leader.”

Hinds stated that there can he no questioning of the fact that for over 35 years LFS Burnham “was a dominant figure in the politics of our country, that his was an extraordinary career that stood against all others challenged only by the no less extraordinary and outstanding career of Cheddi Jagan whom it appeared faith required to endure and outlast him.” Hinds added “For many years Burnham was a dominant and dominating figure in our politics. For many years, he was striving to stride and was striding over Guyana like a colossus.” 

Hinds commented that as a young person he could sense that the society was “fascinated and captivated by the youthful Cheddi and Forbes heralding revolution, heralding a new state, new relationships between people, promising new possibilities.”
Hinds recollected that Burnham and Jagan brought together two broad streams of our people with their differing historical experiences as in a marriage.
Hinds in his submission quoted from Aston Chase: “For a Guiana scholar, a lawyer to have mixed so closely and familiarly with workers was at that time unprecedented in our country and ran counter to the prevailing socio cultural prejudices.”

Alliance For Change leader Raphael Trotman said that to many Burnham was “a visionary and an extraordinary statesman and yet also to just as many as well, he was the villain.” Trotman: “Burnham was undoubtedly an outstanding student, a great orator, a gifted lawyer, a visionary and wise politician.” 
Trotman continued “that an objective assessment of the man cannot be complete if we attempt to airbrush away his blemishes and buff only his accomplishment; the same is true in the reverse, were we to diminish his many accomplishments and dredge to the fore his mistakes and blemishes as if to suggest that these were the only defining characteristics of his life.” 

Trotman articulated that the life of Burnham and that of Cheddi Jagan must be viewed in the context of the happenings of their era when the Cold War brought its freezing grip to Guyana and determined and influenced many of the decisions taken by our leaders of the day. Guyana fell victim and remains a casualty. We have “over time experimented, we have critically supported, we have condemned, we have killed, and we have defamed each other…sometimes not realizing that we were acting out a script handed to us by our colonial masters and the superpowers.”

Dr. Jagan had mentioned in his book West on Trial that after the suspension of the constitution in 1953, the imperial apparatus had made concerted efforts in effecting a division of the movement favouring the less “left” which included Forbes Burnham.

“Our presence is not to indulge in hero worshipping but to show that in our leaders both past and present, we can find both good and bad. We in the AFC believe that we cannot move forward unless we confront our ambivalent past, not by conflating it and pretending that the good and bad were fused to produce a perfect state rather by disaggregating that past and separating the ignominious from the honourable.”

One of the resolve clauses of the motion calls for the National Assembly to give “due recognition to the service of Mr. Burnham to the National Assembly and Guyana by requesting the Government to have prepared and published a collection of his speeches spanning his tenure in the National Assembly for display in the Library of the National Assembly.”

Another resolve clause had moreover recommended that the National Assembly “calls on the Government to designate a State Institution to be responsible for historical Research and Documentation to chronicle and archive all of the works of each of the Presidents of Guyana for the benefit of future generations of Guyanese.”
Another resolve clause called for the mounting of full sized portraits of each of the Presidents of Guyana in the Chambers of the National Assembly. (Amar Panday)