Latest update April 16th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 26, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
Kaieteur News – The PNC/R and its sidekicks are predictable. This is one of the reasons why the PPP/C has always been able to counter the traditional narrative that is spun whenever it is in office.
As explained in a previous column, the PNC/R and its sidekicks like to play the victim card. They drum up fears of ethnic domination and promote the idea that the PPP/C is practising ethnic discrimination and the economic marginalisation against Africans.
The PNC/R chant of ethnic discrimination concerns what it says is the termination of the services of 2,000 public servants. However, the PNC/R is yet to provide names of these 2,000 persons so that its accuracy can be verified and a determination made as to how many of those sent home were political appointees.
Then there is the contention of economic marginalisation. The most often used basis for this is the so-called preference given to the Indian-dominated sugar industry as opposed to the African-dominated bauxite industry.
The facts however do not support this assertion. For more than a decade, under PPP/C governments, the faltering bauxite industry was sustained by subventions provided by the State. In fact, on a per capita basis, Region 10 enjoys a far higher degree of support from PPP/C governments than many other Regions, as was so compellingly argued by former Prime Minister, Samuel Hinds, in a letter – “Linden/Region 10 received greater attention, subsidies from the PPP/C” – published in the Stabroek News of October 6, 2016.
The last income and expenditure survey also debunks the claim of ethnic economic marginalisation. In a study undertaken by Dr. Ramesh Gampat and entitled “Guyana: Population, Poverty and Ethnicity”, it was found more Indians lived in poverty than Africans.
The narrative of ethnic domination is resurfacing, as predicted. David Hinds is one of the main purveyors of this narrative and he has most recently been joined by former PPP/C Minister, Henry Jeffrey.
In fact, the latter in a recent column asserted that the PPP/C is continuing its mission to achieve political dominance. Having made this sweeping generalisation, he fails to illustrate just how the PPP/C is presently doing this. But this too is an old tactic: make a sweeping statement and repeat it often enough until it gains traction.
Jeffrey however goes much further than saying that the PPP/C is presently on a course of political domination. He says that the historical trajectory of the PPP is to achieve political dominance.
He may wish to explain if this is indeed the case, how he stayed so long within the bosom of the PPP/C leadership. Having realised that the PPP was on a historical mission of domination, did he not have a moral duty to separate himself from the PPP/C government? Did he ever raise this issue within the PPP/C government which he served? Did he ever raise it with Cheddi Jagan with whom he was said to have had a good relationship? Or did this eureka moment only present itself after he departed the government?
In his recent column, Jeffrey states that the historical trajectory of the PPP is to achieve political domination. He provides some examples to support this claim. First, he says that the Jagans’ sought to control the party by way of their ethnic majority. But was that majority not entrenched by the split with Burnham?
As regards that split, Jeffrey states that the quarrel with Forbes Burnham that ultimately led to the split in the party was over the leadership. But what were the factors which precipitated this dual for leadership? Was it a quest for ethnic domination?
In a book which he co-authored with Colin Baber, Jeffrey said that personal, ideological and tactical factors explained Burnham’s manoeuvre for leadership in 1952 and following the 1953 elections.
Jeffrey, in his recent column, also repeats on old discredited claim that the PPP’s refusal to join the West Indian Federation was largely because it thought that its ethnic base would be diluted in an essentially African federation.
Yet Jagan himself had been criticised by middle-class Indians as having betrayed their interest by his position of regional integration. The PPP’s position on Federation had always been consistent. Jagan supported regional integration even before the PPP was established. His position, however, had always been conditioned by his Marxist outlook. He saw regional integration within the context of creating a socialist and independent Caribbean. Jagan viewed regional integration in an ideological context rather than on ethnic grounds.
The PPP, which he headed, was wary of the possibility of the West seeking to stem the influence of Cuba by creating an amalgamated Caribbean Union, which would amount to nothing more than an enlarged colony.
Since the days of the Political Affairs Committee, Jagan had argued for a Federation with dominion status and self-government, instead of a union with a crown colony government. He would later argue for regional integration to be tied to independence. Cheddi saw the pitfalls that would emerge from a Federation without either dominion status or independence. Federation would amount to nothing more than a commonwealth of colonial states in the Caribbean, tied to the interests of Britain, which would use the movement to deny rather than promote political independence.
Burnham on the other hand, as negotiations for Guyana’s Independence got underway, called for independence only within a Federation. In effect, he was interested in Guyana being granted independence only under a Federation.
One of the region’s foremost advocates for Federation was CLR James. He saw Federation as a vehicle for achieving political independence for the Caribbean. Jagan saw Federation as only being viable either with dominion status or independence.
But James, who was critical of the stance that Jagan took in relation to Federation, never accused him of embracing an ethnic position. This is what he had to say about Jagan: “…Dr. Jagan is no petty racialist, not at all. I am unalterably opposed to the political philosophy, which he accepts. I am unalterably opposed to its methods. I have told him so in person. And therefore, there is no reason why I should not say so in public. He has not hidden his views; there is no reason for me to hide mine.”
“But in regard to his aims for British Guiana, and for the West Indies as a whole, they are those of an enlightened modern person. He is not counting up how many Indians, and how many Africans and how many acres of land, and basing the future of British Guiana on that.
“Some of his supporters might be doing that, but his general view is not that at all.”
There is therefore not one grain of truth in the speculation that Jagan was opposed to Federation, because it would marginalise his East Indians support base.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
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