Burnham, Jagan, Rodney: Time for revisionist history

Jun 06, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Guyanese scholars must now free themselves of the cultural and ethnic loyalty they felt they owed Forbes Burnham and the PNC, Cheddi and Janet Jagan and the PPP and commit themselves to scholarly objectivity and historical truths.
Once the PNC and PPP were around in Guyana with a powerful presence, African-rights scholars felt that a revisionist treatment of Burnham would play into the hands of Indian hegemonic rulers.
Indian intellectuals in the diaspora have been treating Cheddi Jagan with kid gloves because at the psychological level, they tell themselves that to expose Jagan’s egregious role in the past would be helping Burnham’s image. It is also time to examine the mistake of Walter Rodney.
Mention must be made of recent contribution to Guyana’s historiography by Tacuma Ogunseye and Ralph Ramkarran. No one should doubt Ogunseye’s contribution to African consciousness in Guyana the past forty-five years.
No one should doubt Ogunseye’s advocacy on behalf of African people. In a published letter in response to a reaction to certain testimonies on Forbes Burnham at the Rodney Commission, Ogunseye asked why do admirers of Burnham believe that he hasn’t done any wrong to Guyana.
Ramkarran in his weekly Stabroek News columns is revealing details of political labyrinths in the PPP, that allow one to put a revisionist interpretation of Janet Jagan’s role in this country that highlights her Machiavellian character.
With the results of the 2015 elections, we are moving in a direction that will take us beyond the legacies of Burnham, Jagan, Janet Jagan and Walter Rodney. As Guyana embarks on historical directions, we need to take down our incomplete historiography from the shelf, dust it off and present it with revisionist wrappings to our young generation.
Any attempt to present a revisionist perspective of Guyana’s historiography must start with its most controversial actor – Forbes Burnham. Burnham has been presented to generations of Guyanese in a diametrically opposing way and the two sides are not necessarily representative of an ethnic mentality. I refer again to Tacuma Ogunseye’s stance that Burnham’s admirers seem to believe he committed no wrong. Indians on the other hand are incapable of seeing virtue in Burnham.
In identical fashion, generations of Indians think Cheddi Jagan was the best leader ever in the English-speaking West Indies. African scholars specializing in African-Guyanese contribution to Guyana’s modern evolution would argue that Jagan was happy to be a leader of Indian people and his days in government from the fifties favoured Indians.
Revisionist directions need to strike a balance. Forbes Burnham is too demonized and that distasteful process should come to an end. The authoritarian balance-sheet of Burnham is too large to be glossed over. The ubiquitous example is his fondness for a constitution that should never have been drafted with the contents it presently has.
The great side of Burnham cries out for recognition and this is where Guyana’s historiography needs an infusion of fresh thinking.
Cheddi Jagan has been treated like an angel by both the intellectual and the lay person for over sixty years. This unfair process needs to come to an end. Jagan had an opaque mind filed with selfish motifs and his long opposition to Burnhamite authoritarianism masked those naked weaknesses.
After he came to power in 1992, the old accusation of Indianness in his politics was revealed.
Back in power in 1992 after almost three decades in opposition, Jagan revealed what many long suspected; he always rendezvoused with authoritarian thoughts which remained invisible while Burnham was in power. Jagan in office after 1992 saw immense touches of unfairness. There were witch-hunts, vendettas, incestuous politics, ethnic preferences that erased the positive legacy with which he was once associated.
Finally, Walter Rodney. Exactly what Walter wanted in the seventies? If it was to overthrow Burnham, why did he turn a blind eye to the inherent flaws of the PPP? Was it possible that Walter was so too naïve to see that the PPP was using him to remove Burnham to install an Indian government? Isn’t that what Jagan regime became in 1992?

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Burnham, Jagan, Rodney: Time for revisionist history

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