‘We are passengers on the power-drunk-driver minibus’

Dear Editor,

Mr Maxwell’s letter of August 21 in SN returns to an old theme, Burnham-bashing, with which I for one have no quarrel, not being one of FB’s defenders (‘Burnham’s socialist path prevented Guyana from developing like Singapore’). Somehow, this time, the letter seemed to warrant closer examination. He places blame on one man, Forbes Burnham, for Guyana’s predicament. He seems to be aware that socialism, whether Jagan’s or Burnham’s would have left us no better off but emphasizes Burnham’s brand and specific agency. After all, it was he, FB, whose party had the helm of power from 1964, including a period of rigged elections. He thinks it was a simple matter of Burnham not using his brilliance to use the West-leaning “Lee Kuan Yew approach” to sail home to economic prosperity.

First of all, an examination of his claim that FB was “unbelievably academically gifted” and yet “profoundly challenged where economics was concerned” provides some interesting clues. The statement is self-contradictory. There are too many brilliant minds recorded in history, including in Guyana, whose only challenge was which discipline to follow after school as their minds grasped anything they put it to. In the time of FB’s ascent, the headmaster was the brightest man in the village. A man being a good lawyer or dentist was expected to be a good leader. The Peter principle “every employee tends to end up promoted to his level of incompetence” had not yet been articulated. When we later consider Mr Maxwell’s reference to the USA electorate and Obama some context springs to mind immediately. There is no comparison between the ability of a post-colonial semi-literate society with a mature and advanced electorate of the 21st century like the USA. This suggests that the focus should be on the competence of the electorate more than on Burnham. As it will turn out, the Burnham cold case is a curious one; the deeper we examine, the larger the set of suspects and the closer to the investigators.

Next we examine his statement “…It is the same disease (race) that has kept this country in a profound and ignorant darkness, some would argue, deservedly so.” This is the conventional wisdom. So a reality check should do no harm. Malaysia and Singapore were part of the same federation. The World Bank Malaysia Overview updated on February 28, 2014 says that “Malaysia is an upper-middle income, highly open economy.” It was one of only 13 countries in 2008 to have recorded average growth of more than 7 per cent per year for 25 years or more, and, says the Bank, in addition poverty fell from over 50 per cent in the 1960s to less than 2 per cent currently.” Now let’s take an extract from the Economist with regard to the 2013 elections. “The second danger is of a rekindling of the ethnic animosities that led to bloody rioting in the 1960s…. Sadly, however, [Mr Najib] presided over an ugly campaign by … UMNO… UMNO was as negative, racially divisive and pro-Malay as ever.” The darkness of which Mr Maxwell speaks is clearly economic, given his accusations against FB. But here we see ethnic tension and even sporadic rioting existing side by side with economic development. Even Rwanda, recovering from genocide, has managed to post an average of 8% economic growth.

In order to make his case, Mr Maxwell creates an iceberg without a base. This is Lee Kuan Yew on an encounter with a Chinese Jamaican during his visit to Jamaica in 1975. “A passing car came to a halt with the driver shouting ‘Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee, wait for me. You mustn’t forget us. We are having a very difficult time.’” This is a typical indication of what ethnic leaders have to deal with. LKY was an ethnic leader in Singapore. (The ethnic Chinese would be comfortable with him representing their interests. The Malays, Indians, and others not). FB, like Cheddi, and Peter D’Aguiar, was an ethnic leader. Ethnic leaders have to deal with the expectations of their followers. It is interesting that Mr Maxwell only sees a role for Africans in his analysis as FB’s captive and passive victims. We are not privy to the ethnic issues driving FB’s selection of economic policies. But we can guess. In a sense, they are all the same as elsewhere – economic. We can also surmise that an economic policy that would devastate the chances of an ethnic leader’s followers would be suicidal. In Malaysia, the argument was, and still is, over the survival and economic chances of the native Malays. It does not appear to make much sense, therefore, to examine FB apart from his position as an ethnic leader.

FB chose socialism and Mr Maxwell makes him a fool for doing so. It is easy to do a good job when analysing the past. It would appear that the leaders of the ’60s and ’70s had a much harder time. Mr Maxwell says “When socialism expectedly collapsed…” He doesn’t say who expected it to collapse. It took a long time for ‘Capitalist Roader’ Deng Xiao Ping to prevail against socialism in China. Another man of uncontested brilliance, Dr Walter Rodney no less, devoted the entire first chapter of his book How Europe underdeveloped Africa to a treatise on the inevitability of socialism. Mr Maxwell seems to be unaware that socialism had a special lure to people fighting the anti-colonial struggle, not just Burnham. Forbes Burnham was applauded by many in and out of Guyana for his bold moves to control the “commanding heights of the economy.”

He says FB “lost a grand political opportunity to utilize a capitalist system to politically and electorally win over naturally capitalistic Indians…” In spite of the economic progress of Malaysia cited above, Ethnic Chinese Malaysians still have their own party –The Malaysian Chinese Association. This great economic performance did not translate into ethnic Chinese reward of any party on account of economic satisfaction. In fact, the ethnic Chinese are very dissatisfied, although the MCA is a part of UMNO. We can safely conclude that high economic performance winning over Indians from the PPP was not guaranteed, nor is it guaranteed even today.

Mr Maxwell, almost en passant, mentions that “Singapore had a racial and ethnic problem too. The people decided their economic interests trumped race. They fixed it.” The facts do not support the statements. First of all, the struggle was as brutal as in Guyana. This was 1969. The racial problem still exists. The people decided nothing. The problem is suppressed not by the good economic results but by political management by the majority Chinese leadership. The disease has not been cured. Netina Tan in the paper ‘Constitutional Engineering and Regulating Ethnic Politics in Singapore’ contends that, “What is remarkable about Singapore is the way in which the PAP government uses its legislative supermajority and incumbency advantage to pass a series of legal and electoral reforms to overtly protect ethnic minority rights and maintain racial harmony, but in the process, suppresses individual freedom and perpetuates hegemonic party rule.” And as in Guyana, there are no statistics on the distribution of income, and therefore it is difficult to assess socio-economic and social division in the country. Furthermore, there is evidence, too, that social polarization exists along ethnic lines, with the ethnic Chinese community considered better off than the Malay community.

FB died in 1985. The Berlin wall fell in 1989. Russia was a basket case then. Russia has gained first world status in 25 years. The Peterson Institute for International Economics claims that “from a historical perspective, it is impressive that Russia built a dynamic market economy in only seven years” and “The Yegor Gaidar team had a clear idea of how to build a market economy. President Boris Yeltsin supported this idea and presented it with a set of policy actions to the Russian parliament on October 28, 1991.” Communist China’s capitalist roaders have won the day with capitalist reforms beginning in the 1980s. It is now 29 years since Burnham died.

The problem with Guyana is with the followers not the leaders of the past. We produce them. We haven’t learnt yet that we are in the driving seat. Forbes, like Cheddi, was a creature of his time. To the extent that our leaders are misleaders we have allowed them the leeway. Until we get out of the socialization that we elect people who are expected to know best and do not hold them to account and do not exercise our civic duty to contain these people, Lord Acton’s dictum rules: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Mr Maxwell talks about Trinidad. Pollster Vishnu Bisram’s letter of September 6, 2008 shows both supporters of the PNM and the UNC wanting to hold the government and opposition to account. Prime Minister Kamla Bissessar-Persad acts to get rid of the corruption in her party because she feels the pressure of the people to act. The idea of asking for an apology from the PNC serves only to deflect the responsibility from where it rightly belongs – ourselves.

It is beginning to look like our analysts and columnists have invested a huge amount of time and column inches in what is questionable analysis. They have been hypnotized by an image of Burnham burned into their consciousness. They have managed to delude themselves and a lot of people in the process. The letter from Tony Vieira in KN of August 1 should have fallen like a bomb on the political discourse. Maybe it has; the silence is deafening. Mr Vieira makes a startling observation. It is that simply being declared President is not enough to form a government, under the Guyana constitution he must (as in all other countries where the common rules of constitutional law are established) seek control of parliament through coalitions with other parties to obtain the majority of the votes in parliament. If Mr Vieira is right, there are several huge implications.

The first is that there would never probably have been so many naked kings exposed – all the best legal opposition brains , analysts, and commentators and electoral commission would have missed that a proper reading and interpretation of the ‘Burnham constitution’ would have rendered unnecessary the tragi-comedy that ensues in Parliament. If he is right, what does this tell you about the society? Hint: This is the same society that allowed one single man, namely, Vincent Alexander, to stand between an incorrect application of the elections results of 2011 and the dispensation we have now. It is fascinating to theorize what kind of analysis would have been current had he not been vigilant. It is not inconceivable that the error (if it be such) would have gone unnoticed by the rest of the incompetent opposition. Mr Maxwell compares this somnolent, impressionable, and careless ‘civil’ society with that of the USA. Such a thing would not have happened there.

It appears that we are not backward because of Burnham but that we are backward because there is where we choose to look. We are passengers on the power-drunk-driver minibus and while some are picking the others’ pockets, others are analysing the littered road behind and yet others are distracted by the loud music of propaganda.

A casual read of the above-mentioned articles and LKY’s book reveals that the Singapore model was as much political as it was economic. LKY imposed the discipline of a martial artist to ensure that his government began and remained spotlessly clean. Even now it is the 5th least corrupt country in the world. He also ensured that ethnic minority rights were legally protected. Oddly, Mr Maxwell does not mention the rapid industrialization that LKY engineered by befriending the disengaging British government. The PPP has also had Western help. But there is still no industrialization. Zilch. And FB hasn’t been here for a long, long time.

Yours faithfully,
Frederick W A Collins