Like many countries, Guyana is a land of several divides – the most obvious being one of race, a tragic legacy of empire and a subject thoroughly discussed over the years.
Class divisions too have been analysed as part of understanding our political past and present. Perhaps one aspect not mentioned as much and which might have some bearing on how citizens view each other is the Urban/Rural divide – a political phenomenon that is present in almost all countries to varying degrees.
In the UK, the Brexit vote exposed sharp divisions primarily over immigration between those living in the countryside and small towns vs those from the big cities. In Thailand the rural red shirt Thai Rak Thai party rose to power on the back of resentment over the urban privileged elitism represented by the yellow shirted People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD). Violence became so severe the military stepped in. The widely misunderstood Mouvement des Gilets Jaunes in France in 2018/19 had its roots in petit bourgeois protests over taxes and drew its supporters mainly from rural France and its small towns. American politics has of course a quite sharp rural vs urban divide and politicians way before Trump have skillfully found many fault lines and exploited them ruthlessly.
What has caused this and how might it relate to our situation? The rise of urbanisation in the West was a result of the Industrial Revolution and the need for factories to have a concentration of available workers nearby. For example the city of Manchester grew four fold in the last 25 years of the 18th century as factories sucked in rural workers. Even back then there was a backlash to the squalor and ugliness of city living and “these dark satanic mills” which found expression in romanticism and the idealisation of the countryside.
In 19th Century America immigration from the Old World resulted in the tremendous expansion of cities along the Eastern Seaboard and this would be continued with the Great Migration of some six million African Americans from the South, escaping the cruelty of sharecropping and segregation to cities such as Detroit, Chicago and Milwaukee at a time when manufacturing needed workers.
More recently China has seen the most extra-ordinary internal migration with its urban population rising from 29% in 1993 to 61% in 2020 – a complete reversal. While this has been part of probably the most successful political experiment in world history, lifting 850 million out of poverty, it has not been without its tensions and economic complications.
For Guyana, its urban population has actually declined from 29% in 1960 to 27% in 2020. The irony is that Guyanese have enthusiastically taken part in urbanisation and its opportunities, but they simply bypassed their own capital (or left it) and have settled in American and Canadian cities instead. There is not enough space to delve too deeply into this phenomenon but our mass migra-tion, once the fifth highest per capita in the world, has arguably had a more profound effect on the country and the economy than any of the political parties, despite their best efforts.
A 2018 Pew Research Survey found a stark difference in political opinions between urban and rural Americans. For example 57% of rural voters think immigrants threaten traditional American values and customs compared to 35% of urban voters;70% of urban voters think the government should “do more” while 49% of rural voters think it is doing too much. And the ultimate litmus test in American politics, 63% of urban voters think abortion should be legal in all or most cases while 52% of rural voters think it should be illegal in almost all cases.
The opinions of these two demographics are shaped by their environment: If you live in a city you are more reliant on such utilities as water, sewage, public transportation and more engaged in the provision of shared public services. You meet hundreds of people of different religions and races each day and see behaviours that differ from yours and challenge your beliefs. You have no choice but to be more tolerant than someone on a ranch clutching their Bible, miles from another living soul.
In Guyana, historically the PPP/C base has been rural and the PNCR’s urban. And we see this reflected in how the two parties have treated those constituencies over the years. The sugar industry has been losing money for close to 20 years but the PPP/C has not made the radical changes for its viability while the short-lived coalition looked to downsize the estates so they would no longer be a burden on the predominantly urban taxpayer. The PPP/C has now pledged to reopen them while giving those who were laid off an unsolicited $250,000 paid for by the taxpayer. The coalition talked about public transportation and a revitalised city (although got little done). This 2022 budget says nothing about public transportation and is all about highways, private cars and help for agriculture. The PPP/C neglect of the capital is a reflection of rural views of the city. President Ali himself appears to see urbanisation as a bad thing and is proud of the decline in Guyana’s urban population. Instead as a minister and President he has encouraged the development of peri-urban or suburban communities. This has created a new geographic constituency for Guyana that will be a big factor in coming years: the suburban petit bourgeois. Neither country nor town, they live on the outskirts, commute daily and might send their children to private schools. They access the capital for work and pleasure but do not want to live in it. This constituency will increase rapidly in the coming years as standards of living rise and it may well be they become the swing voters in what are razor thin elections. The government’s housing drive, easy access to low interest mortgages, the highways, the creation of Silica City as suburban utopia should be seen in this context. However while the PPP/C may have an advantage over its rival in the suburbs, the successful provision of services and the execution of infrastructure to cater for what is a high maintenance demographic will be crucial.
