For the PPP it’s all about a god-given right to govern

Dear Editor,
One of the major shortcomings of Guyanese political culture is the stubborn refusal to learn from history or to totally ignore it. Mr Ralph Ramkarran in his latest article (GC, June 2) opines that while there are widespread calls on the PNC for an apology, there have not been similar calls on the PPP. He is right. But that does not mean that the PPP has not committed errors which have been costly for the country. Many PPP leaders and historians have a way of either twisting Guyana’s political history or completely ignoring crucial aspects. For decades, Dr Jagan’s West on Trial was the source of all political truth. Now that that is no longer the case there is some unease among the faithful. Any questioning of Dr Jagan’s decisions is met with the vilest of attacks. Freddie Kissoon bears the brunt of these attacks because of his constant subjection of Dr Jagan’s politics to scrutiny. But, more importantly, because he, an Indian, dares to question the ultimate Indian hero. One does not have to agree with Freddie’s methods or his conclusions to recognize that he is carrying out a priceless function. He is constantly asking questions of power – an important aspect of democracy.

Freddie and other observers have drawn attention to the PPP’s ideological inflexibility that made destabilization by the British and the US much easier during the Cold War. But there was also ethnic inflexibility which played a major role in the consolidation of Africans behind the PNC and facilitated the rise of the party to power in 1964.

For example, PPP leaders say nothing about the PPP’s alienation of the African leadership that stayed with the party after the 1955 split. In retrospect the 1956 split of the PPP when Sydney King, Martin Carter, Rory Westmaas et al were forced out of the party was even more deadly for race relations than the 1955 split. The PPP’s embrace of the Indian commercial class which had opposed the party before the split was a hefty blow. Here was a communist party with capitalists, whom the communist leader called “patriotic,” playing leading roles in its leadership and cabinet while he, the leader, criticizes the Marxists for “ultra leftism.”  Imagine Sydney King’s surprise when the leader turned up with one of the capitalists to try to “offer” him the party’s chairmanship.

In his 1956 Congress speech the leader repeated, without rebuke, unsubstantiated charges against the party’s African leaders by the rank and file. The leader turned his back on the West Indies Federation on ethnic grounds, but camouflaged it in ideological terms. The PPP’s decision to fight King at the 1957 elections when the PNC didn’t was the last straw – the same King who stood up for Jagan when Burnham tried to wrest the leadership from him and who turned down the position of leader and the opportunity to become Premier in 1953 so that Jagan could prevail. Africans up till 1957 were split in their support for the PNC. The ethnically narrow focus of the PPP’s economic policies between 1957 and 1964 and the party’s senseless triumphalism in the face of growing ethnic tensions after its 1961 victory left Africans with no choice but to rally around the PNC. The big point I am making is that it was the PPP which clearly chose ethnic power over ethnic solidarity. It ignored the signs of ethnic unrest. It rejected joint premiership in 1961 and only tried to engage the PNC in coalition talks when it saw the writing on the wall.

Three decades later the PPP made the same mistake when it ditched its PCD allies and opted for an Indian-based government in 1992. That single act erased all the gains of the anti-dictatorial movement. The immediate effect was the reconsolidation of the African community behind the beleaguered PNC and the reintroduction of zero sum ethnic politics. Once again Africans were left with little choice. Having fought alongside Indians to bring down the PNC, they watched in dismay as the PPP turned their struggles into a stepping stone for its narrow need for revenge and power. The split of the PNC between the Greens and the Hoytes gave the PPP some breathing space between 1992 and 1997 but instead of trying for national reconciliation it opted for witch-hunting – an action that drove Africans to close ranks again. By 1997 the PNC was united again and the story of the next decade is written in blood. Since the 2006 election and the splits in the PNC among the Corbins, Trotmans and Alexanders, the PPP has again shortsightedly opted for power politics.

For the PPP it is all about that party’s god-given right to govern, regardless of the consequences. It has taken me along time to arrive at this conclusion, but I am sure that I speak for more than myself when I say that, with all due regard to the sins of the PNC, the PPP has proved to be the ultimate barrier to ethnic unity and nationhood in Guyana. I may be wrong, but to paraphrase the calypsonian, David Rudder, please make a liar of me.
Yours faithfully,
David Hinds