Given the coalition trend in other countries can it be replicated here?

Jun 06, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
Modern societies are built on science, not idle talk and inactions. In this regards social scientists strive to understand people and society by studying phenomena (i.e. observable facts), however sensitive or unpleasant.
The beneficiary of this application is that science is not emotive; it is factual, thus better for arriving at conclusions and actions.
Recent election victories in the USA, UK, Trinidad and Suriname have us transfixed and those desirous of a better society yearning for it to happen here.
The apparent galvanising interests, attractions and appeals are race, gender and coalition. In that these features have similarities and differences to Guyana, honest examinations of them can help in sorting through our conundrum.
The named societies, including Guyana, are racially pluralistic with their attendant inherent conflicts.
The difference, however, is that Guyana does not have a governance style that embraces respect and giving equitable space/opportunities to all. In the U.S., Blacks and Hispanics have delivered crucial states for Obama’s victory.
Both groups are assured of the protection of their interests on the national agenda with a Congress (Parliament) staffed with Black and Hispanic Caucuses to represent their legislative interests and lobby to as needs be. By virtue of his racial identity Senator Obama was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Suriname, characteristically similar to Guyana, openly acknowledges its racial plurality as evident in overtly race-based parties, parliamentary seats and collation governments.
Trinidad and Guyana are not as openly accepting as the U.S. and Suriname in as much as the support base of their main political parties is racially driven – the UNC and PPP are Indian; and PNM, AFC and PNC are Africans. The UNC’s led governments in both instances have been made possible from Robinson’s African dominated NAR as in Panday’s UNC, and PNM’s constituency for Persad-Bissessar.
Past elections in Guyana have also seen Africans more likely to vote for other parties, including the PPP, WPA and AFC. In spite of the presence of charismatic leaders like Ravi Dev, CN Sharma, Khemraj Ramjattan, Paul Tennessee and Manzoor Nadir, Indians have not made a similar shift from the PPP.
Social scientists studying these observable facts would have an interest in finding out: 1) what is/are responsible for the fluidity in one racial group as against the other; 2) given the coalition (or gender) trend in other countries can it be replicated here, and if so, what needs to be done; and 3) can holistic development be possible in spite of # 1 and/or 2, and what structure(s) should be put in place to achieve same. Lest this quest for knowledge creates another opportunity to hijack and hinder intellectual growth (and by extension society’s development) with the oft deflector of ‘the PNC 28 years’ it is opportune to recall the PPP never possessed an angelic record prior to 1964 and after 1992.
The same argument can be made for the Panday UNC government in which Kamla Persad-Bissessar held key ministerial responsibilities.
Many will recall the allegations of poor governance, the scandals that haunt the Pandays re their UK bank accounts, and billions of taxpayers’ dollars squandered through corruption and jobs for the boys, yet Africans last week turned against the PNM in preference for Kamla and the UNC.
Another observable fact in these societies, as against Guyana, is the healthy respect for and involvement of the academic community in helping to influence understanding, national (media) conversation, behaviour and acceptance for universal values and norms as the countries work through their conflicts as a requirement in development.
Other societies engage in serious continuous analyses of their electoral system, people’s behaviours, trends, hold leaders accountable to campaign promises, and keep a watchful eye on government.
In Guyana the academic community, particularly the social science, is either ignored or has shut itself out from conversations of this nature, though critical to development.
For us after elections (local and overseas) and the novelty wears off, the society reverts to make-belief, ignoring the increasing need to resolve escalating conflicts, as the preferred opinion shapers/leaders talk shop awaiting another phenomenon to cover, analyses, get excited over, shout for adaptation, absent the required work to achieve same.
A nation of talkers that ‘prides’ itself that developmental discourse is shouting the loudest and longest, would invariably see public opinion dominated by the agent provocateurs, misinformed, unforgiving and intolerant, while the caretakers of government and their cohorts capitalise on and exploit same to the detriment of society.
In the meanwhile other societies move into the future through collective involvement, leaving us behind.
M. A. Bacchus