The African anti-government activists of the Burnham era are the greatest modern heroes of Guyana

Dear Editor,

The current public debate about the relevance of our sinister past is occurring in the context of the upcoming national elections, said to be the most important ever. The ruling Indian party is using this strategy to great advantage as there is nothing in their record, bad as it is, that comes close to what the other guys have in theirs. I would like to focus instead on some heroic events that were occurring at the same historical time (the Burnham days), and to suggest that certain players and their actions in those dire times are relevant for all times, not just election times.

But to begin with, here are some assumptions I am making that you should be aware of at the very start.

Firstly, I deliberately used the term ‘Indian party.’ If we do not start with the correct assumptions, we will go around in circles and end up nowhere. We are in the main two nations, Indian and African. There are only two mass parties in Guyana, the Indian people party and the African people party, and it is a good thing that they are closer to being numerically equal than not. We have danced around this fact in all manner of ways, refusing to call things by their proper names, whether out of embarrassment, shame, or guilt, or a combination thereof. With the Cold War over, and no socialist or capitalist divide to invoke, both peoples are after the same thing, namely, the acquisition of state power and all that goes with it, including the enriching opportunities for corruption and nepotism. In such a situation, a win by one of the two parties is viewed by the race of that party as a mandate to rule over the race of the other party.

Secondly, both groups vote for the party of their own race. I said it elsewhere that our voting preference was ordained before we were born and that it is in our DNA. More so, there is a kind of reverse affirmation in the way we vote. That is to say, we do not vote for something or someone but more against something or someone. The face we see when we make that “X” is not that of the gleeful victorious candidate of our choice but that of the sorrowing vanquished. Our voting style can indeed defy analysis. The East Indians that are voting for the opposition are also voting race, in that they are not voting for Granger but for Nagamootoo. Truth be told, to vote conscience, impulse, and instinct (in other words, race) is guaranteed by the constitution, buttressed by privacy and adorned by secrecy. The brow beaten voter is king of the day in that dingy booth. And though the kingship is for only five minutes, the reign lasts for five years.

Thirdly, consider what I have said so far and you will agree that a true coalition, indeed the mother of all coalitions, can only be between the Indian people party and the African people party. Any other is a travesty.

Now to the players in that dreadful period, the atrocities of which have become the focus of the current elections campaign. I am referring to those African people that were fighting the African-led government, some of whom lost their lives in the process (Ohene Koama, Edward Dublin, Walter Rodney). They came mostly from the then Working People’s Alliance. There were other non-Indians (Father Darke, for example) and some non-PPP Indians, but it is the Africans who gave the movement its credibility and drew the attention of the outside world. Without them the struggle would have been perceived as the same old never ending Indian/African internal squabble. In my book, therefore, these fellow African countrymen are the greatest modern heroes of Guyana. They strode against nature as well as nurture and some of them paid the ultimate price. They were driven purely by the impulse to do the right thing, regardless of the consequences. East Indians, as a race, though in a majority, had become politically non-existent and accepted their status as second class. Mark the people giving evidence before the Rodney Commission of Inquiry. East Indians are conspicuous by their absence. It is those African people of whom I speak that led and sustained the struggle and bore the brunt of government’s brutality.

Compare those African people with their current counterparts, the Indians in the forefront of the struggle against the Indian-led government. The Indian anti-government activists of today do their thing in an atmosphere of unbridled press freedom. They live in Georgetown and the mainly African people of the capital city have accorded them the status of celebrities. These Indian anti-government activists go about their business with the adulation of rock stars. If they walk into an upscale bar, a dozen men would tumble over each other to buy them drinks. The very opposite prevailed with the African anti-government activists of the Burnham era.

No one who did not live as an adult in those times can understand what went on. Today in Guyana democracy is bursting at the seams. Fair, free, and transparent elections is alive and well. The Fourth Estate is having a field day and is running amok. The people’s choices will prevail without fraudulent interception. International observers, including no less a personage than a former U.S. president, will bear witness. How far have we come!

I pay homage to the African freedom fighters of that dark era. It is principally because of them that we are free. An Indian-led government should never forget this. It is partly because of their valiant efforts that the very Indian government came to office.

I close this letter with a comment about acknowledging the sins of the past. It would help African people more than it would help Indian people if present African leader/s would acknowledge the wrongs that were done. Not to do so would be saying in effect that it never happened. In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, such action (inaction) would saddle African people forever with a burden of denial and living a life of fiction.

Besides, East Indians are so mad at their Indian government they would like to find accommodation elsewhere. And Mr. Granger in the run up to the elections has been acting more presidential than the former president. If he would commit to this one historic gesture, it would heal a festering national sore. And who knows, it might even woo more Indian votes than what the Indian party defectors would attract.

 Yours faithfully,

P.D. Sharma

Los Angeles, Calif.