Dear Editor,
Can a developing country have democracy and at the same time achieve impressive gains in growth and economic development? This is a topic that is occasionally discussed, and, quite frankly, I don’t know what the answer is. We don’t hear very much about the politics of Asian countries, as most of the news is devoted to economics and business, and I rather like that. However, I do know that many of the countries in Asia are making remarkable progress in the economic realm. To cite a few examples, there are Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and others like Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, although not developing as rapidly, are much better off than they were, say twenty years ago. I purposely left out China and India, as they are the true Asian giants and, as such, I prefer to deal with them separately. I know that Singapore may not be all that democratic, and I know that Hong-Kong is, but I am not so sure about Taiwan, Thailand and South Korea.
India is widely regarded as a democratic society, but then we hear all those mind-boggling stories about the discriminatory nature of the caste system, and how you have to be a fair-skinned Indian to get the really big roles in the Indian movie industry. Maybe, these two occurrences by themselves cannot invalidate India’s claim to be democratic. So, I guess that we can safely say under democracy India has grown quite a lot, and so has Hong-Kong and maybe even Japan. With China, however, we have Capitalist economics juxtaposed with a Communist regime. So, although China has a free market economy, the Chinese society is not really democratic. And, of course, China is looming as the true economic giant of the twenty-first century. Is the absence of democracy really helping China to develop? I don’t know for sure, so I would be cautious about drawing a conclusion that would suggest that there is an incompatibility between democracy and development, except to say that maybe it depends on the particular society.
Forbes Burnham liked to talk about democracy and, in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary, he probably did see himself as a democratic leader. But as many of us know with Forbes, his mouth would say one thing, but his deeds would suggest something totally different. He never once said to the Guyanese people, ‘You know Comrades, this development thing is a big job, so we should relax a little with democracy if we are going to develop. We can’t have both.’ Which leader would say that to the people? But as intelligent people, we know that sometimes they are caught up in those kinds of dilemmas and difficult choices have to be made.
Although, the democracy or development dilemma,may be one dilemma that political leaders face, the other greater dilemma is democracy and ‘ not losing power to the opposition’ dilemma. If democracy is practised the way it should be, most leaders have an understandable fear that they would lose power. Democracy could unleash a flood-tide of dissent and many leaders would be insecure in such a political climate. Democracy could empower the opposition and destabalise the government. Which leader would really want that?
So, in the case of Guyana, democracy suffers at basically two levels. Number one, the government sees a need to spend a great deal of time and resources on propping itself up from destabilizers and political enemies; such threats could be real and sometimes they could be imaginary, as is the case with most governments. Secondly, if there is a true concern for economic development, democratic procedures could seriously impede that process. So, the thinking goes something like this,’ We are so far behind that we have to develop in a hurry. We can’t be too concerned about ‘rule of law’, ‘due process’ and other such legal and constitutional clap-trap.’ Our present government seems to be so crippled by security issues that democracy suffers, as well as the fact that not very much is being done on the economic front.
Burnham had his faults, but in the early and mid-seventies when I was employed by the Guyana government, I really thought that the country was going somewhere. During this period, Guyanese people were denied many of their basic freedoms, but on the economic front, it was a very exciting time to be in Guyana. There was a lot of activity relative to economic development, which included agriculture and a number of start-up industries, like pharmaceuticals, clay-brick and other manufacturing entities. There were also attempts being made to can meats, fruit and vegetables, not that such endeavors always met with the desired success, but, serious attempts were being made to launch out in new arenas to boost Guyana’s industrial capability and productivity.
In this regard, there was an incessant traffic of land-rovers for the transportation of government officers from the city to the rural areas where various projects might have been in progress. The role of the officer would have been to inspect the project, and submit a report on his or her findings so that the particular project could continue to go forward, and be brought to completion. Heavy duty equipment and machinery to boost Guyana’s development thrust were very much in evidence, and in operation throughout the length and breadth of Guyana. Things were indeed happening in our beloved country and it was truly beautiful.
Young people were also being trained in a number of importants skills such as agriculture, carpentry, masonry, electrical, plumbing and so on. In this regard, there was the Guyana Youth Corps that was later absorbed by the Guyana National Service. And, of course, I am aware that there were a number of problems with GNS., to which I would simply say that,’you can’t throw away the baby with the bath water.’ National Service could be brought back, in some other form if preferred, and, of course, with new safeguards and stipulations to make it more acceptable to the general public.
Mr Frederick Kissoon said in one of his articles that Burnham’s economic ‘revolution’failed because he simply ran out of money and after that everything came crashing to the ground. Maybe, this is really what happened, though other scholars and economists have attributed the failure to other aspects of mismanagement as well. It was probably a combination of things, but is it possible for us to go back and rekindle the flame, sort of?
Mr Editor,( I don’t remember the gentleman’s name), but in a letter to the press, this gentleman made the point that Guyana is an English-speaking country and we are not that far from the United States. Yet, customer service jobs from the U.S., are being outsourced all the way to Asia, when we have hundreds of people in Guyana who are quite capable of doing those jobs, and there is no language barrier. Naturally, the gentleman asked the question, ‘Why can’t Guyanese get those jobs?’ And I concur with him 100%. But let’s leave it right there, because, both you and I know, Mr. Editor, why Guyanese people don’t get those jobs. We know that it’s not as easy as that, and a number of factors might be responsible, not least of which, is the absence of a reliable system of electrical supply in Guyana.
It’s not easy, Mr Editor. Nevertheless, this is how we ought to be thinking and the government should take the initiative to get the ball rolling, so that those kinds of opportunities would be available to Guyanese people. We don’t have to re-invent the wheel by always starting new industries, but it would take a lot of diplomacy and political savvy to penetrate the markets of rich countries, as a means of providing opportunities to our population of less than a million people. It doesn’t seem like such a big job, but egos and politics take up so much of our time,m that I think I understand, why we have lost the momentum of the early 70’s and are not inclined to pursue new initiatives.
However, my conclusion is, that both development and democracy could be achieved , if there is the will to do it. Ultimately, the Guyanese people will be the ones to accomplish this huge task. And we can’t pretend about this. We both know that Guyanese people like a lot of freedom and democracy, and we also want a job that pays good money, so that we can enjoy a decent standard of living, at the very minimum.
Yours faithfully,
Rudy Vyfhuis
