Dear Editor,
Editor, when I stated that the WPA floundered, flopped and flailed (‘We must eschew the “us” versus “them” mentality…’ SN, December 31, 2009), I was simply using an alliteration to emphasize the point that the WPA lost significant momentum with Dr Rodney’s death. I did not imply that the WPA did nothing at all, but rather that it ceased to excite the imagination and regressed to just another one of the minuscule third parties that have dotted Guyana’s political landscape over the years. There were many reasons for this. The first was the fact that, in the words of a WPA insider (referenced in my previous letter), “everyone wanted to become Walter Rodney,” while the few individuals who continued to do organizational work were undermined by the others. Consequently, there was intransigence and a breakdown of the nationwide organizational structure. Additional reasons for the WPA’s regression included the following: no large-scale membership (Nigel Westmaas’s claim that the WPA “held an impressive multi-racial membership from Georgetown extending all the way to the Corentyne, and Amerindian communities in the interior” was not validated by the 1992 election results – unless the argument is that somehow the PPP was responsible for this lack of validation); very few, if any groups at the grass roots level; no mass base; no structured or far-reaching propaganda machinery; lack of adequate financial resources and logistical capacity; and, with one or two exceptions, ivory tower leaders who were more or less disconnected from the electorate, not having been imbued with Rodney’s ‘groundings’ capacity. Incidentally, the WPA’s involvement in the PCD had nothing to do with its impact or influence but rather with fact that it existed and the PCD was an attempt to bring all the opposition movements together, regardless of how tenuous their existence was. And the fact that the WPA engaged in the activities adumbrated by Mr Westmaas is not proof positive of impact and influence on any significant scale. Lesser organizations have organized on grander scales.
Now, in their rush to defend the grandiose assertions about the WPA, its intellectuals say that the WPA was not interested in elections. Indeed the original WPA may not have been. But what about the political party that resulted from the coalescing of that original UG based group with Moses Bhagwan, Eusi Kwayana, Brindley Benn and their respective groups as well as the PPP splinter that included Kenneth Persaud and a few others, and that was joined by Dr Rodney? After all, the raison d’être for any political party is winning political power. And power is obtained either through the ballot box or the bullet. So is Mr Westmaas saying that the WPA was focused on power through the bullet?
We are also told that the WPA never claimed that the crowds would translate into votes at elections. But a political party does not have to state the obvious expectation. Besides how else does a political party gauge its influence and impact if not by electoral support? And since one WPAite admitted that they expected a good showing at the elections (at least to hold the balance of power), on what was this expectation based? In any case, I never stated that the WPA expected the crowds of 1979-80 to translate into votes in 1992. Instead I simply asked why did its crowd attendance not translate into electoral support for the WPA at the 1992 elections? Dr Hinds’s assumption that I was referring to the Rodney crowds is an admission that post Walter Rodney the WPA attracted no crowds to boast about at its public events, another indication that the WPA had regressed after Rodney.
Yet was it not this expectation of popular support that caused the WPA to hold on to an inflated self-image of its impact and influence, to the extent that it felt that its proposal on the composition of the PCD slate should have been accepted by the PPP? So even though the WPA also rejected the various proposals of the PPP it attributed all blame for the failure of the PCD to the PPP. And even after it was blown away at the 1992 elections, the WPA still clutched its overblown self-image to the extent that it refused an invitation to join the PPP cabinet and then proceeded to express bitterness at the PPP for shunting it aside. In short, both pre and post-1992 the WPA’s self image coloured its refusal to work towards common ground with the PPP. Yet all the blame was placed squarely at the door of the PPP, which simply negotiated on the basis of its strength, confirmed at the 1992 elections.
Incidentally, Dr David Hinds disclosed that Cheddi Jagan was rejected as head of the PCD slate because he “would alienate African Guyanese voters.” Given its supposed impact and influence did the WPA not feel that its significant presence in the PCD would have negated that ‘alienation’?
Incidentally too, Editor, the WPA has always claimed to be a multiracial party. Yet the percentage of WPA leadership that was non-black was not significantly greater than the percentage of the PPP leadership that was non-Indian or the percentage of PNC leadership that was non-black. Surely, the WPA couldn’t seriously argue that the coming together of Eusi Kwayana and Moses Bhagwan from opposite ends of the race spectrum indicated multiracialism? Additionally, the WPA could not have pointed to its membership or group composition to support this contention since neither was significant. And, as one WPA intellectual himself pointed out, the WPA was not mass based. So what was the basis for the WPA’s conclusion that it was a multiracial movement?
Now as they grapple with the contradiction between what is and what they claim, the WPA shouts to the rooftops that the PPP has marginalized them. But how could the PPP have marginalized a political movement, as influential and impactful as the WPA was, in the estimation of David Hinds, Eusi Kwayana, Abu Bakr, Nigel Westmaas and others? Surely they’re not suggesting that the WPA needed the PPP for validation? After all, after 25 years in the political wilderness, the PPP could not be marginalized by the PNC nor did it ever make such a claim.
Yours faithfully,
Annan Boodram
