Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 29, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
There is no doubt in my mind that if you ask the real core leaders of the PPP what they think of US democracy, they would harshly condemn it as imperialist rule by the super wealthy class; the crumbs are given to the working people who are deceived into thinking that they have freedom.
The American way of life would be perceived as bourgeois democracy which, through a process of false consciousness, the average citizen thinks he/she is free.
I have no doubt in my mind that if you tell these people that the American method of choosing their party’s presidential candidate is uniquely democratic they would respond with laughable cynicism. The rebuttal would be that it is a great show among persons who have money.
Simply put, the PPP has its conceptualization of democracy and that interpretation shuts out any ideas from the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, books of the great European philosophers beginning with Aristotle right down to the thinking of 20th century liberals like C.B. MacPherson of Canada and John Rawls of the US.
The PPP does not accept concepts of freedom and democracy that came from Western theorizing from Aristotle right through to the present time.
The multitude of democratic values found in Western philosophy are conceptualized by these PPP cadre as bourgeois ideas created and maintained through the cultural hegemony of the ruling class.
Western political concepts are not immune from criticism. In fact many of them have been proven to be flawed.
The attack on the traditional meaning of justice and rights and how they are distributed in liberal democracy came from Westerners themselves foremost of which was the Frankfurt School of philosophy.
The leading names were Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermus and Theodor Adorno. Across the border there were French deconstructionist philosophers like Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault.
Both of these iconoclastic approaches in philosophy owe a debt (ironically) to Nietzsche who wrote in his posthumous autobiography, “Ecce Homo” the following; “My experiences entitle me to be quite generally suspicious of the so-called ‘selfless’ drives, of all ‘neighbour love’ that is ready to give advice and go into action.”
Taking up from Nietzsche, these German and French philosophers have contributed enormously to our understanding of the inherent weaknesses of Western meaning of freedom and democracy.
But these attacks on the Enlightenment were not driven by authoritarian instinct but by the need to improve the level of freedom in Western societies.
Taken together, 20th century philosophical questioning of the traditional definition of democracy has provided us with new ideas about how justice and rights can be made more meaningful in modern society.
But the one thread that connects all of them is the greater involvement of citizens in the determination of their community.
This is where the PPP is divorced from all concepts of Western thinking of freedom and justice. The essential point for the core cadres in the PPP is that the task of dispensing freedom is best obtained through leadership.
It goes back to Lenin (not Marx; Marx is blamed wrongfully for many communist mistakes).Within this context one has to understand why the PPP congress next week will not choose a successor to Bharrat Jagdeo.
The Leninist mentality of the PPP is that leaders provide inspiration to the population. The wisdom of society is derived through the spirit of its leaders (in this respect Leninism and fascism are uncannily similar).
The direction the PPP has taken since its evolution is that the party leadership will guide the masses. There is no congress before the end of 2011 when the next election is due.
What that means is that the thousands of delegates at Diamond will not be allowed to vote for a presidential candidate. This is what they should be doing within the context of freedom and rights.
The congress is the anatomy and physiology of the party. In simple semantics, it is the highest decision-making forum of the PPP. But it will not vote for a leader and/or a presidential candidate.
The leader of the party will be selected at a closed meeting by his/her “comrades at the apex. It is the same with the presidential candidate.
These are the wise minds of Plato’s Nocturnal Council that will tell the people the good that will be done for them. As in Lenin’s vanguard party, the society will be truthfully guided by party leaders.
These anointed guiders will act on behalf of the congressional delegates and truthfully give them the best presidential candidate in 2011.
In reality this type of thinking is fascism, plain and simple. The society saw this evil in the sixties and fought against it. Sadly for Guyana, it has been reborn.
Jagdeo giving Exxon 102 cent to collect 2 cent.
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