– And Christmas with the PNC
Now what on earth would prompt me to hark back to such an issue and time as embedded in my caption?
Perhaps it’s my method of personal stress-relief – the floods have made every street and yard in my own South Ruimveldt vicinity, rivers, and as I was writing this bop! The ubiquitous blackout. Perhaps it’s my literary version of the Guyana Cook-Up Show I do on television. Perhaps it is the strange doings of the Christmas spirit in my mind. Or could it be that I wish to remind the Jagan-bashers that both Cheddi and Janet spent lengthy stretches in three local jails – compliments of the colonial rulers?
Perhaps not. It’s my escapist manner of leaving the weightier issues of the day to the more intellectual, academic and the more “politically scientific” analysts. Then too, just look at what’s happening in our over-crowded prisons these days. Nothing like the “decent” days when Cheddi served time at Camp Street and Mazaruni. (Janet was in both Camp Street and New Amsterdam, young Guyanese.)
Why jail?
After returning from India, in 1954, where he and Forbes Burnham had gone to protest the 1953 suspension of the British Guiana Constitution and the removal from government of the PPP, the local colonial authorities restricted, by law, the free movement of Cheddi whom they knew could mobilise the popular following he still commanded. Like Gandhi, Cheddi executed a non-violent, civil disobedience campaign and promptly ignored the Order.
Magistrate Guy Sharples promptly – and dutifully – sentenced him to six months in jail – with hard labour. (Local and foreign sentiment was to swiftly condemn such a harsh unjust sentence.) So it was off to Lot 12 Camp Street for the then most popular political leader the colony of BG had ever experienced.
Life in jail…
He, Cheddi, said that, at Camp Street, he was given two “suits” of prison garb – made of a very stiff material. He had a tiny cell all to himself. Soon however, because he was a tuberculosis sufferer, he was placed in the more pleasant prison infirmary. He called it “a distinct advantage” as in the ”hospital” he met and mingled with more fellow prisoners and he was able to read, read, read, even after 6.00 p.m.
I now let Cheddi take up some of the story of his interesting days in jail: “While in the prison hospital, I listened to the `Uplift Hour’ services delivered every Sunday by churchmen and other prominent individuals and was aghast at the utter nonsense told the prisoners. Soon I was filled with the desire to take the stand.
Prompted by me, the prisoners asked the prison authorities to grant me permission to give an address. When asked what I intended to speak about, I replied, `Thou shalt not steal.’ At first they refused, but after a boycott of the `Uplift Hour’ by the prisoners, they agreed.
I concluded my talk by stating that the biggest thieves were outside of the gaol; that under imperialism and capitalism, the foreigners and local capitalists, landlords, bankers and middlemen extracted surplus value – profits, rent, interest and commission – from the working people; that so long as the system of imperialism, and capitalism prevailed there would always be prisoners, and the gaols would become bigger and bigger.
Sections of the press made this talk the cause of a big hue and cry; I was abusing my privileges, one newspaper cried. And so the prison authorities removed me to the second floor of the brick prison, to my original cell next to the section which contained “capital offence” prisoners, some of whom had already been condemned to die. And I was not allowed to take any further part in the `Uplift Hour.’
But no sooner had they transferred me than they were ready to move me again. To be among the prisoners, to undergo their routine and to work with them, was for me a distinct advantage. By close contact with them I got to know intimately their cares and fears. It was not long before we had organized an assault against the prison authorities.
Our targets were prison conditions and diet. The food was inadequate and monotonous. The same items appeared on the menu day after day with little variation. Breakfast and dinner consisted of a large cup of coffee and a small loaf of bread, more often than not stale. Salt fish and beef alternated the midday routine. Greens were unknown. After the prisoners joined me in a hunger strike and questions were asked in the British House of Commons some changes were made in the diet, fixed since 1934.
I then started a small study group on the theory and practice of socialism. At this point, the prison authorities felt they could no longer tolerate my presence among the prisoners.”
Well, then it was off to Her Majesty’s Penal Settlement (HMPS) as the “lovely” hinterland, riverain Mazaruni Prison was then known. There he loved Nature’s scenery but detested the authorities’ penchant for cleaning floors instead of having the inmates do more farming. There was much time for leisure and rest for Cheddi at “Mazow”. He learnt carpentry and some tailoring. And smuggled out articles for the Party Paper which he wrote on toilet tissue!
Before he was jailed in 1954 he had told the “Colonial” Magistrate: “Today Guiana is a vast prison. Whether I am outside or inside matters little. Prison holds no terror for me. I expect no Justice from this or any other court. Justice has been dead since the British troops landed. I am looking to the day when there will be a greater justice in Guiana”.
It is said that from the Labour circles in Britain to the corridors of the emerging anti-colonial powers in Africa and the Caribbean, Cheddi’s imprisonment heightened that anti-colonial struggle. Note that his imprisonment did not come about for inciting riots and getting innocent, mis-guided people killed. Certain parallels must never be attempted. At that time Cheddi’s was a greater cause.
It’s a pity that, in today’s culture of criminality – where banditry and murder result from the get rich-without-toil mentality and from plain, gross ignorance, our inmates might hardly be inspired by Cheddi’s time in jail. Oh well … be informed. And discuss.
Christmas-time PNC
Time and space might force me to return to this issue another time. But even the grown Christ-Child would have seen the need for a strong, effective, non-subversive Opposition in any Democracy. I am in a little concern for my Erstwhile Party – the People’s National Congress (PNC). (Forget “R” and “1-G”!)
Undoubtedly, Vincent Alexander and James McCallister were committed Party men – intellectual and strategist all. Every Party has its internal dissensions. And that could be healthy – when there is matured deliberation. Sad to see the spiritual departure of people like Hamley Case, Eric Phillips, Stanley Ming, et al. The PPP had their share of expulsions, I know but they are in power.
Let the Season of Goodwill be a Christmas of Reflection for the Comrades, but I must record my admiration for Vincent Alexander’s principle…
Shopping days?
1.) So what does M.P. Deborah Backer think of the Recall and all that?
2.) My 2 Friday wishes today? That Cheddi Jagan’s ideas for exporting Bananas, making paper from Wood Pulp and making Bath Soap here, would come true and secondly, that Government would change its mind about a year-end bonus – Pay it on Old Year’s Day!
3.) Janet Jagan got married in a Chicago City Hall. Does she know Barack Obama’s Chicago?
4. I believe in the spirit behind Santa Claus!!
’Til next week.
