Dear Editor,
I refer to the article titled, `Burnham was author of social cohesion, national unity – President’ (SN August 8). I respectfully disagree with His Excellency, and I do so firmly and vigorously. Here are some reasons as to why.
From the outset, I recognize and appreciate Mr. LFS Burnham’s intellectual power, oratorical gifts and his multifaceted persona. In many instances, he was larger than life and, indeed, did bestride the Guyanese world like a Colossus. Having said these things, I now make clear that there is neither room, nor patience, nor understanding in my makeup for cult leaders, hero worship, and the general glow and swooning that accompanies political idolatry in this country, and which is not limited to Mr. Burnham alone. With this out of the way, I now proceed to establish the pillars of my disagreement on this subject with the current Commander-in-Chief.
First, as a stripling Guyanese, I observed and filed away the hard, sharp, bitter divisions that rent asunder this land during the so-called “disturbances” and the more accurately labeled “riot-time.” This carried over sans actual violence into every stream of life in Guyana. The distrust, antagonisms, and in many cases hatreds were all there, be it in the public service, or law enforcement operations, or community relations, or jobs, or business routines, among other things and places. The deep lingering agonies were there, too. All of these sentiments were there in full undisguised configurations.
Editor, now here is the crux: Mr. Burnham did not move assertively and aggressively (as he is wont to do) to diminish and derail a seething situation on either side of the cleavage. By my thinking, he should have reached out commandingly to his supporters first to tone down, to be more inclusive, and to be more nationally minded, instead of the rigid tribalism that became the order of the day. In the same vein, he did very little (other than the sometimes majestic and now famed public utterances) to assuage and overcome the vehement resistance and pervasive reluctance of Indians to meet him halfway, or part of the way for that matter. When bitter Indians recoiled and retreated, Mr. Burnham did not advance; and if and when he did, such lacked substance and sufficiency, if not credibility. He could have done more; he did not. It is now time for generalized statistics.
Statistically, social cohesion and most forms of national unity in the then Guyana came in for a continuous flagrant trampling. The public service and state corporations, in terms of the number of qualified and available Indians employed, (be they senior or junior) militate sharply against this claim of Mr. Burnham being the author of social cohesion and national unity. At the same time, job prospects for Indians were bleak, if not almost non-existent. Job presence and job visibility must always be a leading indicator when there is any conversation about cohesion and unity in a plural society as Guyana. From my vantage point, I believe Mr. Burnham was a non-contributor in this very sensitive realm.
In fact and as if to pour acid into oozing odiferous wounds, there was the party card. No one dared leave home without it: otherwise no work, no contract, no nothing. When a whole people is subject to such an abomination, and effectively marginalized in this manner, then I cannot see any attributes pointing to the starting, piloting, and powering the social cohesion and national unity vehicle. It was just not there; it would have been jeered, in the light of prevailing circumstances.
Statistically again, the then Atkinson Field was mobbed daily with regiments of Indians fleeing. There is no other word. The capital flight, intellectual flight, and political refugee flight (a status some would claim in Canada) was unending. I readily acknowledge I may not be the brightest bulb in the firmament, but that was the evidence noted close up, where Indians consisted approximately 80-90% of the departing crowd, which felt that it had no other option. That is undeniable, and is part of the Burnham legacy, which neither burnishes nor buttresses claims of his contributions to cohesion and unity. Taking matters a step further, it is a legacy that provides some of the basis (pull factor) for today’s 93% exodus of the tertiary educated.
In fairness, it must be said that Indians did not respond favourably to the maximum leader, and their political nemesis. So, they sold out and left. Many simply wiped the dust off their feet from here and went, some never to return. Feelings ran that deep and high. They felt that there was no place for them here, that they did not belong. I certainly thought so, and went for over three decades. I did not discern, and cannot acknowledge his efforts-serious and sustained-in the realm of social cohesion and national unity, which is really one and the same thing. On a scale of 1 to 100, Mr. Burnham comes out under 20 in my estimation. In other areas, he did do much better.
When his undeniable brilliance and visions should have served him (and this country) well in this most sensitive and roiling of matters, his star disappeared behind the desultory and the disappointing. There are schools of thought that his vision was to alter the demographics for political success, through the attrition of continuous migration.
Migration or not, he certainly tampered with the numbers to favour himself during the quinquennial fraud called national elections. It goes without saying, that if social cohesion and national unity were to gain a smidgen of traction and meaning, these electoral hijackings definitely split the country further apart, and dilated festering unclosed ruptures. I venture to go so far and to submit that if these frauds did not take place, then it is highly likely that this society would have been spared a political monstrosity that followed.
For these reasons, and some others not penned, I separate from Mr. Granger today on his bold identification of Mr. Burnham as the author of social cohesion and national unity. Mr. Burnham could have done much more; he was comforted with way less, and the merely negligible. It is for some of the same reasons, that I stand unyielding and highly critical of the now Leader of the Opposition, for in him I detect strong similarities, though the heavy-duty mental horsepower is lacking.
Editor, I have one final point to make: I knew when I voted for the first time ever last year that I was voting, when all is measured and examined, for the PNC. As such, I was voting for Burnham. There are words; they are only as good as the deeds that follow. Some things speak for themselves.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
