Dear Editor,
All of us create mental constructs to help to make our existence bearable. These are however usually empirically and logically flawed because they are motivated by a desire not for truth but solace. In this regard, the Prime Minister is no exception. He wrote: “Fortunately, Dr. Jagan resisted calls from within and without the PPP, for more robust and violent responses to protect and recover the rights of the PPP, because Dr. Jagan did not want to run the risk of things getting out of hand and escalating to the point of an out-and-out race fight.” (“So long as the rigged elections are not rejected by Afro-Guyanese,…” SN: 27/04/2011). This is nowhere near the truth but it illuminates and helps to remove the foundation of his narrative.
To cut to the chase, for decades no one has questioned the fact of PNC/UF/Western connivance in the removal of Dr. Jagan from power in the 1960s. However, in 1963, after Duncan Sandys, the British Colonial Minister, followed the American lead and gave the opposition all it wanted, Dr. Jagan had a choice either to accept defeat or to attempt to fight the forces allied against him. He must have known that the opposition would not allow him a free ride and that the outcome could have been bloody. He chose to fight and, as he wrote in The West on Trial (p 305), once he returned to Guyana he organized a ‘hurricane of protest’ campaign in January 1964 and that by February a sugar strike was called and work on all the sugar plantations ceased.
He was clearly attempting to send a message to national and international capital that, at the very least, he had to be part of the solution. However, the dye was already cast: the opposition forces were determined that he would not succeed and ethnic fighting ensued. In his own words: “The toll for the 1964 disturbances was very heavy. About 2,668 families involving approximately 15,000 persons were forced to move their houses and settle in communities of the own ethnic group. The large majority were Indians. Over 1,400 homes were destroyed by fire. A total of 176 people were killed and 920 injured. Damage to property was estimated at about $4.3 million and the number of displaced persons who became unemployed reached 1,342.” (Ibid, p 311)
More than anything else, it was this salutary experience that brought home to Dr. Jagan the cost of struggling against international capital (even in this era of globalization and democratic openings Muammar Gaddafi and a few others are still being taught this lesson). The events of 1964 saw the most fractious internecine conflict that this country had ever faced. Writing around that time, Peter Simms had this to say of Dr. Jagan: “Perhaps his greatest achievement was to found a party that was above racial strife, but when he was forced to resign power in 1964, hundreds of people had died, been wounded or lost their property in three years of ever worsening civil strife. He was by that time so far from reality that his government had ceased to care whether those who voted it into power lived or died (Peter Simms “Trouble in Guyana,” p186).
It is important to note that this was not a struggle for “free and fair elections” but for the PPP’s perception of that elusive notion of justice. Of course, those against them viewed the PPP’s efforts as a dastardly attempt at communist enslavement.
Majority rule is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end; that being an understanding of what constitutes a good life. Particularly in ethnically divided societies such as ours, majority rule cannot establish that end; it must be reached by other forms of consensus building. Dr. Jagan and the PPP either did not appreciate this dimension of the problem or were not sufficiently dexterous to establish a national consensus.
As I have said before in relation to the broader question of historical accounts of the 1950s and 1960s: (“The traditional PPP historiography is fundamentally flawed:” SN: 28/08/2010. ‘Unitary opposition slate at the next general election is a critical component:” KN:28/08/2010) “Cheddi came back to Guyana and spearheaded the formation of the PPP, but in so doing, happened to convince major international and national forces that he was a communist who would change the geopolitical balance on the South American continent and imprison his people in a Soviet type regime. ….. Jagan was very instrumental in his own demise. I go so far as to suggest that given the ethnic nature of our society, if Jagan had not been thought to be a communist, there would have been no Burnham regime of the sort we knew. There is a shared responsibility for what has taken place in this country and too many – even PNC – people have bought into … the traditional PPP account of our history.”
I do not expect the PPP to apologise for attempting to establish communism in Guyana, for making our country a superpower playground and more disastrously, for confronting international capital when obstacles were placed in its way. How then could I expect the PNC, the United Force, the churches, the trade unions, etc. to beg pardon for fighting and keeping at bay what they perceived to be attempts to establish a communist dictatorship? From my standpoint, this aspect of our history resulted from and admixture of geopolitics, idealism, opportunism, ignorance and inexperience. There is absolutely no reason for any group to apologise or beg pardon, unless of course we all agree to bare our collective souls!
In passing, what is somewhat ironic is that Mr. Tacuma Ogunseye and co. have helped to make a fetish of free and fair majoritarianism, which today has returned to haunt us in numerous ways. For example, it must be particularly galling for one such as Mr. Ogunseye, who has spent much of his political life denouncing unfairness and rigged elections, to hear that “for the first time unreservedly, openly and publicly” it has been acknowledged that elections under the PNC were rigged. But take heart, for this is elections season, a time to rally the constituency and paint opposition leaders, especially those who have been accused of association with rigged elections, further into a corner by stressing the ‘injustices’ they have done to the beloved founding father.
I have many times wondered why is it that we have built monuments to and make so much of the 1863 Rebellion, the Enmore and Ballot Box martyrs etc. and not the scores of persons who died during the 1964 disturbances, which make some of these events pale into insignificance. Is it that to do so would demand uncomfortable explanations? There are those who claim that Guyana needs a Truth Commission, if so it should contain an historical dimension that will help us to decipher the myths and half truths that have been peddled over these many decades.
Yours faithfully,
Henry B Jeffrey
