Commentary
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TRIBUTE TO MR. RANJI CHANDISINGH

Posted June 25th. 2009 - by DR. RICHARD VAN WEST-CHARLES

You get to know a human being in various ways. Cde. Ranji Chandisingh became my Cabinet colleague in the 1980’s, when I was first appointed a Minister of Health and he as Minister of Higher Education. I noted that he was20a careful Minister who paid attention to the details of the discussion during Cabinet sessions and would only intervene when he had an issue of consequence to share with the Cabinet. A disciplined man, he was equally sparing with his words and his time with the rest of his Cabinet colleagues. I do not intend any criticism here. It was just that “Ranji” as we called him seem to ration the time that he had to spend in any given 24 hours. I must confess that I was fascinated by his political personality and sought to find out what made him into what he became when we first became colleagues in the 1980’s.

His was a fascinating background. “Ranji” came from a well educated family and he himself was well accomplished intellectually. It is interesting to note that at the very young age of 16 he was offered a place at the prestigious Harvard University in the United States. It is not sufficient or acceptable to gloss over this fact. For a young man coming from a British colony to impress the authorities at Harvard University that he was a qualified and suitable candidat e to enter a University of this standing must, by any measure, be a notable and lasting achievement. Like most men of his generation who was born in the 1930’s, whether in Europe, the United States, or the West Indies, “Ranji” found Marxism/Leninism as the political philosophy best equipped to transform the colony of British Guiana into a modern state. He joined the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) upon his return home and soon made his mark as one of its most gifted and acceptable leaders. His intellectual gifts and his grasp of the Marxist/Leninist philosophy ensured that he emerged as one of the leading theoreticians of the PPP. It was not an accident that he was appointed Principal of Accabre College, a school established by the PPP to train its cadres in the Marxist/Leninist thought. But “Ranji” was also a disciplined individual with administrative skills and he was selected to join the PPP Cabinet in 1961 as the Minister of Labour, Health and Housing. He remained with the PPP until 1975 when he joined the People’s National Congress (PNC). “Ranji” himself has given his reasons why he left the PPP. It is my judgement that “Ranji” was essentially a patriot and wanted to see Guyana developed rapidly in a way that would make it possible for all of its citizens to realize their potential, regardless of race, religion, colour or creed. He was among20the first by thinking and deed to put the nation above partisan politics.

When he joined the PNC in 1975 he quickly became Director of Studies of the Cuffy Ideological Institute and those who served with him at that institution have affirmed that he was skilled as an administrator and made a major contribution to the development of that institution. If anything, “Ranji” was at home in the field of education. This was recognized by th e then President of the Co-operative Republic, Cde. L.F.S. Burnham when he appointed him successively to the post of Higher Education and then Minister of Education, Social Development and Culture in 1980 and 1981. He held the latter position until 1984 when he replaced Dr. Ptolemy Reid as General Secretary of the PNC when the latter retired. “Ranji” subsequently served as Deputy Prime Minister with responsibility for the Ministry of National Mobilisation. His service to the nation was varied. In 1988 he was selected, at a critical moment in the history of the Soviet Union, to represent Guyana as its Ambassador, replacing Mr. Malcolm Parris. At the end of his tenure as Ambassador “Ranji” elected to retire from active politics. I have narrated the essential facts of his public career to show that he was a true servant of this nation whose commitment to it was second to none. He was a true nationalist and patriot.

What about “Ranji”?

The man? Anyone would tell you that he was a very private individual who rarely ventured out on public occasions. He was a soft spoken man whose probity was beyond question. In politics, he could be firm but fair. And although he was not a man given to expressing his emotions and firmly held beliefs, I noted that when he spoke at the funeral of my father-in-law in the National Park in 1985, he displayed rare but subdued emotion in his testimony to Mr. Burnham as a leader and a politician. It is my view and my view alone that head a great degree of respect for Mr. Burnham and would not have served the PNC if he did not believe that Mr. Burnham had a vision and the will to construct a fair and just society in Guyana. “Ranji” has gone. But he has left a rich legacy of service and commitment. I believe that we can use the example of his life and his role in the politics of this country to recommit ourselves to building a just and prosperous Guyana. We are living at a time when Guyana is facing great and grave challenges and we would do well to look to the example provided by “Ranji” as we seek to build a better country for the development of all.

Majority Rule is Anti-Democratic, Philosophically Flawed
and Inconsistent with Society

Posted June 21st. 2009 - by Duane Edwards

I was reading some letters in the dailies relating to democracy or the absence of it in the context of Guyana. What I garnered from these letters is a relish by soi disant intellectuals to play with words. One is constantly exposed to a profusion of false logic disguised under specious phraseology, cosmetic and casual approaches to matters of considerable consequences. One constantly hear words like simple and weighted majority, limited legitimacy, Consensual and majoritarian democracy, etc all in an effort to analyse what we have operating in Guyana today.

None of these descriptions accurately describe the present administration. What we have operating in Guyana today is, simply put, anti- democratic.

The word democracy needs no qualification, because the very qualification we seek is latent and patent in the word itself. Democracy means "Government, of, by and for the people" or to use Rousseau's version, "Government by the general will". The words "people" and "general will", needless to say, mean the sum total of the people or the will of the sum total of the people. It doesn't mean some of the people, a majority of the people, a simple majority of the people, a weighted majority of the people, etc. Its categorically means the sum total of the people.

Before I offer what I consider the solution to the problem and to expound a little more on the preceding paragraph, allow me to list and analyse the problem from a philosophical standpoint.

First of all, the principle of majority rule is a masked version of that barbaric principle that "might is right" and, philosophically speaking, it is no different to, let's say Nazism, Marxism, Fascism, Capitalism, and Darwinism. At the philosophical level these are all similar teachings. The might is right principle underlies, and is the connecting constant in, all these philosophies. The variable being what is it that constitutes that might. In Nazism, racial purity constitutes the might, in Marxism labor power constitutes the might, in fascism military power constitutes the might, in capitalism financial power constitutes the might and in majority rule numerical power constitutes the might. So to rest or render legitimacy based on might is to philosophically agree with or countenance Hitler, Mussolini, the capitalist ethic and Mr. Darwin.

The "might is right" principle is antithetical to the principle of society, therefore majority rule(which is identical to saying that might rules or "might is right") is also contrary to the principle of society. The might is right principle is the law of the jungle, a law that prevails in the animal kingdom. It is mind-boggling, therefore, to determine how and why this principle still remains a guiding principle among people who are claiming to be civilised and different from the animals. It is also mind-boggling to note the present unquestionable status this principle holds in society, when one learns that it was exactly this principle man was running away from when he first formed societies.

If we legitimise majority rule or numerical might, then by what standard can we delegitimise an overthrow of the government by an expression of physical might or violence? Majority rule is as undemocratic as violent overthrow. This, I presume, answers the question posed in Ravi Dev's column entitled "Minorities' political strategy".

Let me be frank before I attempt to move on, I am not proposing a violent or any other overthrow of the government, I am simply exposing the philosophical flaw in majority rule and lending philosophical and sociological relevance to the movement for shared governance.

In continuing, if majority rule or might is right is the problem then what is the solution? The solution I proposed, not merely in the Guyana situation, but generally, at determining how to arrive at the government by the people or by the general will can be best arrived at or comprehended by a mathematical demonstration. In my personal studies of the laws and formation of society, I learned that society was arrived at through compromise or contract as Eric Phillips stated in his letter "Majoritarian government is the worst form of democracy for Guyana" March 12, 2009. A person only gets all he wants at the expense of the other in a state of nature where there is no social compromise and contract. So why must one group of people get all they want at election time at the expense of others? That's because we have an election system that is contrary to the laws of society.

To mathematically demonstrate the best method of choosing leaders, I will now give the mathematical demonstration alluded to earlier. Supposed there are 10 people voting for either of 3 leaders, labeled as A, B and C. 6 persons vote for A, 3 persons vote for B and 1 person vote for C. Using the present undemocratic method, 60 percent of the people get what they want but 40% is ignored. The best method, one that also reflects the principle upon which society is built, which was also proposed by Rousseau in his "Social Contract" would be to implement a system where the ten persons could be allowed to vote for all 3 leaders as first, second and third options. The leader which claims the plurality will be the compromise allowing everyone to get at least half of what they want. This process could end up, however, with the AFC rather than the two political gargantuans winning the election. While this might be the best option ideally, it might not be the wisest option practically.

So for now, the only workable democratic option capable of reconciling that which is ideally best with that which is practically possible is that of Shared Governance, like it or not.

Janet Jagan: The Uncompromising Partisan

Posted March 29th. 2009 - by David Hinds

Although Guyana's modern politics have been dominated by two men-- Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham--others have still managed to carve out some space for themselves. One such person is Janet Jagan who passed away on Saturday. The Janet Jagan story is remarkable--a white American who abandoned her homeland for an obscure British colony to champion the cause of independence and dignity for the colonized brown and black. She would later insert herself squarely on one side of a bitter ethnic conflict and become the symbol of its defiance.

No politician who was part of the independence struggle in Guyana can escape the harsh critique of those who dread the ethnic mess the country has become. Attempts to place Dr. Jagan and Mr. Burnham above the ethnic fray have been nonsensical at best. Mrs. Jagan's posture as an uncompromising partisan will make it difficult to do such a dance with her. She has undoubtedly been one of the most partisan politicians in Guyana. For her, the People's Progressive Party (PPP) was primary. Not that she was not concerned about Guyana--she was deeply concerned. But she adamantly saw the fortunes of the country through the lens of and primarily within the context of the party she helped to form in 1950. If Dr Jagan was sometimes hesitant and conciliatory, Janet was forthright whether at the podium or in her newspaper columns. For her, politics was ultimately about triumph over your opponents.

It is no secret that she was staunchly against compromise with the opposition, a prerequisite for political stability in ethnically divided societies. This surely was her great weakness. But ironically, in the context of Guyana's zero-sum politics, it was her great strength. Until the very end she was the figure in the PPP that was most feared by the opposition. Unfortunately, but predictably, her controversial decision to accept the presidency in 1997 provided the opportunity for that fear to be translated into ridicule and hate that reached unparalleled levels even by Guyanese standard. Yet beneath it all, there was a level of respect for someone who gave to her adopted country more than many who were born here.

Much has been made of Ms Jagan's communist affiliation. But, in my estimation, she was not a Marxist ideologue. If Marxism featured in her praxis, it was a means to a partisan end rather than an end in itself. Similarly, she will be portrayed in the days to come as a women's right advocate. But, despite her concern for the plight of women, she seemed less interested in gender politics-that did not provide a path to power for the PPP. If anything she was, as others in the vanguard of party politics in Guyana, invested in ethnic politics for it provided a path to power, however uncomfortably. She was also a staunch anti-imperialist who until the end of her long political life berated the imperialists, particularly the government of her birth country, the USA, for their continued plunder of the global south.

In the final analysis whether one is African, East Indian or belong to one of the other ethnic groups in Guyana or whether one is partial to the PPP or not, it is impossible not to acknowledge the momentous contribution of Mrs. Jagan in the shaping of Guyana's politics. Much of what she did was obviously overshadowed by the stardom of her husband and the negative perception of her by half of the population. But whether as organizer, parliamentarian, journalist, advocate, minister, leader, she was steadfast and deliberate.

The death of a political leader is always difficult to take, especially for her/his followers. It reminds us that leaders are humans too. And Mrs. Jagan, for all her hardnosed politics, was very much human, as those who managed to get close to her can attest. Her death, coming soon after the passing of Josh Ramsammy, another political icon, reminds us that the generation of leaders that shaped the first decades of Guyana's independence politics is slowly making its earthly exit. Fortunately, the country had a chance to celebrate Mrs. Jagan and say thanks. She earned it and richly deserves the exalted place she occupies. .

Afro-Guyanese and Rice Part 3

Posted January 18th. 2009 - by Wazir Mohammed

Guyana's Rice Industry: Globalization and Demographic Change, 1800-2008

This is the final of a three part summary of my presentation "Guyana's Rice Industry: Globalization and Demographic Change, 1800-2008" at the International Rice Conference organized by the Guyana Rice Development Board and the Ministry of Agriculture, November 7-8, 2008 to mark the centenary of rice exportation from Guyana.

Small Rice Farmers Are Disappearing

Previously we discussed the role of the colonial state in constructing the disparity in land ownership and wealth between East Indians and Africans in Guyana. Today we examine two factors which contributed to the gradual disappearance of the small rice farmer - one the attempt of the Burnham government to correct the historical disparity between African and East Indian ownership of land and their disparate involvement in the rice industry and two, the impact of globalization and liberalization.

As noted in the previous column there were 22, 156 rice farmers in 1955 and 45,000 in 1970. The 1955 total included only 900 large farmers cultivating plots in excess of sixteen (16) acres, while the majority was small farmers cultivating less than fifteen (15) acres each - approximately 15,000 cultivating two to eight acres each and, approximately 5,000 cultivating less than two acres each. In the absence of any recent scientific study, most industry analysts agree that the demographic make-up of the industry has undergone and is undergoing rapid change. The number of small farmers has decreased, while the acreage under cultivation has increased. Most estimates put the number of farmers in the industry today at 8,000 to 10,000, a reduction of 35,000 since 1970. As early as 1999 Fazal Ally (late General Secretary of the Guyana Rice Producers Association) in a Guyana Review report confirmed that by then the number of rice-farming families had declined to approximately 15,000 and that 70% of the approximately 200,000 under rice was under the control of "fewer than five large companies." This was a telling statement that the nature and culture of the industry were going through rapid change. The figures show that from 1970 to 2000, while the number of farmers declined by 30,000, the acreage under cultivation had increased. Meanwhile the average farm size, which in the 1950s stood at around six acres, had increased to approximately 15 acres by 2000, by which time the trend of the previous 80 to 100 years, when small farmers proliferated, had been reversed. The industry was on track to becoming a large farmer industry, with the small farming families converted into farm workers. This trend has given rise to a migratory rural population and workforce. Small farmers are abandoning their lands to the large farmers and are migrating in search of incomes. These are not small changes: they reflect the changed conditions of the ordinary folk in the rural areas.

The drastic reduction in the number of farmers reflects the fact not only that Guyana is tied to the global economy, but that the global economy drives changes at the local and community levels. Dharamkumar Seeraj, General Secretary of the GRPA, in an interview with an OXFAM Canada team in 2001 reflected on the extent to which the global economy is wreaking havoc on rural life in Guyana and on the future of small rice farmers. He noted that with the impact of global change we are seeing "the break-up of farming families, because farmers have to leave home to go in search of employment." "We see the migration of young potential farmers and qualified people." He further noted that the break-up of the small farming culture affects not only the farmer, but the younger members within small farming households who make up the bulk of the rural population, "We see children called out of school because farming families can no longer afford the cost of transportation, uniforms, and school books. We see cases of suicide, farmers literally dying from the pressures of not being able to pay the banks - heart attacks on the increase, high blood pressure…there are fallouts at all levels."

While globalization accelerated the process of demise of the small farmer and of the small farming rural rice culture, these developments had begun in the 1970s. From the early 1970s to the mid-1980s rice farmers and millers were the target of state-sponsored repression. In this period of transition to globalization, the production, marketing, price, access, and availability of rice came under the control of political operatives who wreaked havoc over the right of farmers to their crops. This is partly reflected in the production figures which nosedived in the Burnham years. The statistics of that period speak for themselves. The acreage under production fell from 270,000 in 1970 to a low of 126,000 by 1990. This state of affairs was created by the insistence of the Burnham government on the need to de-emphasize the role and place of rice in the economy because as it was put, the PPP "had devoted so much of its resources to the rice farmers, who were mainly its East Indian supporters."

To address the historical imbalance between Africans and East Indians in the industry created by the colonial state at the end of the 19th century, to use the words of former finance minister Carl Greenidge, the Burnham government "tried to de-emphasize rice in favor of other agriculture and industrialization to which its own, predominantly urban supporters were attracted." Within the political lens of the government, the historical economic imbalance in the country between the two major ethnic groups had to be addressed through the implementation of institutional policies to curb the influence of East Indians over the decision making apparatus of the industry. Within the framework of this ideology, it re-organized the management apparatus of the industry and derailed the democratization mechanisms which were installed in the late 1940s and the early 1950s that cemented farmer participation in the decision making bodies.

With Burnham's death in the mid-1980s, the new PNC regime headed by Desmond Hoyte implemented measures to reverse the undemocratic trend of the Burnham regime and openly embraced neo-liberal economics and politics under the rubric of the "Economic Recovery Program" begun in 1989. This opened the floodgates to the market economy, and dismantled the framework of the rice industry which had been organized around small farmers. This is reflected in the reduced number of rice farmers today, and the consolidation of land and resources in fewer hands.

Globalization is reshaping the nature of occupation and ownership of land. Land is being consolidated into larger and larger blocks. Many small land-holders in the rice producing areas have either abandoned, sold, or rented their lands to larger farmers. Rural life is being reshaped. As this reshaping evolves, the court system is constantly called into action to deal with litigation. While detailed field research is required to sort through the levels of dislocation in the industry, one thing is certain - the small rice farmer is one of the victims of globalization. Replacement of the small farmer, a process many authors call "depeasantization" is an unintended consequence of globalization. This trend is very pronounced in neighboring Brazil, where 75% of all arable land is now owned by no more than 3% of land owners. Guyana seems destined to move in this direction.

Afro-Guyanese and Rice Part 2

Posted January 10th. 2009 - by Wazir Mohammed

The Cane Sugar Crisis of the 1880s and the Small Farming Rice Industry

This is the second of a three part summary of my presentation "Guyana's Rice Industry: Globalization and Demographic Change, 1800-2008", a paper I presented at the International Rice Conference organized by the Guyana Rice Development Board and the Ministry of Agriculture at the National Convention Centre, November 7-8, 2008 to mark the centenary of rice exportation from Guyana. The third and final part of this series will examine globalization and the evolution of the rice industry since 1970.

In the previous column, I discussed the reasons why Africans are not as involved as they should have been in the rice industry. Today I discuss the growth after 1894 of a small farming, mainly indo-Guyanese rice industry and how this altered economic and ethnic relations in the country. The predominance of East Indians in the rice industry is significant from several standpoints. It points to the lack of foresight on the part of the colonial state and of the manner in which it reorganized the economy in the background of the collapse of sugar's monopoly in the final decades of the 19th century. Faced with the labor crisis of underemployment as sugar collapsed, the colonial authorities permitted the development of a small farming peasantry. This was an about turn on their part. Having prevented the African population from evolving into a peasantry, the colonial state through its decision to provide lands cheaply to time expired indentured laborers permitted the growth of a rice peasantry peopled mainly by East Indians. This policy resulted in the growth of diversification of the economy with the rise of an export crop in competition with sugar. Armed with an export crop and the ability to produce wealth, East Indian rice farmers were able to make economic advances, while the African population was left hanging in the fragmented villages. The historically inherited disparity in land ownership and in wealth between East Indians and Africans in Guyana is related to the lopsided policy of the colonial state. Because of Guyana's capacity to produce sugar for the world market Africans in Guyana were denied the freedoms afforded to their counterparts in other land endowed West Indian Islands. In the context of the colonial West Indies, the growth of an export industry in the hands of former indentured servants in Guyana paralleled the limited freedom some slaves and ex-slaves of the colony of Jamaica inherited seventy odd years earlier. The rise of the rice industry which occurred after 1900 did not have to do with who had or who lacked knowledge in rice production, but with the economic necessities which the sugar planting class faced in that period.

Rice could not be commercialized in the early period because of the threat it had posed to sugar's control over labor and land. Despite the fact that rice was being planted by East Indians from as early as 1865, it was not until the sugar crisis began to take its toll on the economy in the 1880s and 1890s that East Indians were given the go-ahead to commence production on a large scale. The history and evolution of the early struggles with the planter class over rice is captured in the accounts of Lesley Potter, who labeled the rice planting Indians of that period as "the padi proletariat," rather than "peasants." She notes that "most of the cultivation was on small patches of land for immediate subsistence only." Sugar could not permit the expansion of rice. Potter's account and labeling of the subsistence activities of East Indians of that period coincides with Rodney's departure from earlier historians in his labeling of the African villagers as rural proletarians, rather than peasants. This is significant because these rice plots were akin to the provision grounds of slaves who were required to provide part of their subsistence from these grounds. Like the provision grounds of slavery, the small rice plots were part and parcel of the sugar economy. These plots played a major role in reducing the cost of increased food imports associated with the influx of immigrants.

The rice industry of Guyana dates from 1894 to the present. Its rise was related to the impact of the push factor, the release of "excess" labor and "excess" land from the sugar industry. The exodus of labor and land from the age old stranglehold of the sugar barons provided the stimulating impetus for the growth of the rice industry after 1894. The relaxation of the land laws was a game changing event. It altered settlement patterns by opening up lands on the Coast, and in the riverain areas which had been legally inaccessible for sixty years. East Indians who had completed their period of indenture, but were marooned on the sugar plantations and on the margins of the plantations, and in the African villages, were freed to move away and acquire plots of lands in remote districts. Crown Lands, the preserve of the planter class since slavery ended became accessible and the East Indian population took full advantage. Time expired East Indians accepted the challenge of land grants from the colonial authority in lieu of return passages and cashed in as land became cheap as the crisis of sugar deepened. At the same time, the demise of sugar in certain districts also opened up plantations to rice. On the Essequibo Coast for instance, where irrigation water from the natural lakes was accessible, Anna Regina and neighboring estates were converted to rice field. The impact of the sugar crisis on existing plantations, especially those outside of Demerara where sugar was being consolidated led to the growth of rice. As a result East Indian families moved into Mahaica, Mahaicony, the Essequibo Coast and Islands, and the riverain areas of the Corentyne and established settlements.

The phenomenal growth of the rice industry after 1894 is attributable to the rise of settlements of free Indians away from the established coastal plantations. The outgrowth of settlements primarily on crown lands and on abandoned sugar estates accounts for increases in rice cultivation from 2,500 acres in 1893 to 61,200 acres by 1919. While the sugar crisis broke the camel's back, the opening up of markets in the West Indies was important in the expansion of the industry after 1900. From this historical backdrop, by the 1950s the rice industry became the largest user of land in the country. The paddy proletariat had graduated and a fully formed small farming rice industry was established. Except for pockets of tenant farmers in various parts of the country, the number of rice farmers which in 1921 was approximately 10,000, had more than doubled to 22, 156 in 1955. Of this total there were only 900 large farmers cultivating plots in excess of sixteen (16) acres, the majority were small farmers cultivating less than fifteen (15) acres each. Approximately fifteen thousand were cultivating between two (2) and eight (8) acres, while an approximate total of five thousand were cultivating less than two (2) acres each.

After 1950 the number of rice farmers grew steadily and by 1970, according to most estimates, had reached its zenith of approximately 45,000. But since then the number has declined steadily and today there are between 8,000-10,000 farmers in the industry. The rise in the number of rice farmers after 1950 had a direct link to the processes of democratization of decision making in the industry and the growth of representative democracy at the national level. The birth of the Rice Producers Association in 1946 and the election of the first national government in 1953 were important factors in the expansion of agriculture. It was during this period that drainage and irrigation which had been the preserve of the planter class became a national priority. It would be safe to assume that the growth in the industry after 1950 was attributable to the emphasis placed by the national government on drainage and irrigation schemes, on agriculture, and on protective mechanisms to preserve small farming and the rural rice culture.

Afro-Guyanese and Rice

Posted January 7th. 2009 - by Wazir Mohammed

This is the first of a three part summary of a presentation made in November 2008 at the International Rice Conference organized by the Guyana Rice Development Board and the Ministry of Agriculture at the National Convention Centre, to mark the centenary of rice exportation from Guyana. Next week we will examine the relationship between the crisis of sugar at the end of the 19th century and the rise of the small farming rice industry.

In order to understand the reasons why Africans are not as involved as they should be in the contemporary rice industry of Guyana, it is necessary that we take a second look at the ways in which the globalization of the world sugar trade in the 19th century influenced the growth of the mono-crop sugar economy of Guyana and played a crucial role in the marginalization of the African population from land and from participation in the rice industry. Because of Guyana's propensity for sugar and its role in the sugar revolution of the 19th century, the slave population was not only prevented from planting rice officially, but was prohibited by force of arms from doing so unofficially. Unlike other areas of the West Indies, in Guyana the planter class did not permit or sanction the development of diversified agriculture in the colony. They curtailed the growth of provision grounds in the colony and by the 1820s had smashed efforts by slaves to establish runaway African communities in the interior. Many of these communities had organized their living around the production of rice in the far reaches of the, Abary, Mahaica and Mahaicony rivers. This is captured in the report by British Militia captain, Charles Edmonstone who in one of his escapades to capture runaway slaves stumbled on a maroon community in the Abary-Mahaicony area with well cultivated rice fields and fourteen houses filled with rice, which in his estimation could have fed 700 men for an entire year. This shows that while Africans had the knowledge, they did not have the freedom to plant rice either during slavery, or after.

Guyana inherited a slave workforce at the end of the slave trade of approximately 100,000, which was far below the estimated 3 million required to keep all the coastal plantations functioning. This was exacerbated after 1838, when the African workforce began to take trade union action to achieve better wages and working conditions. Faced with these demands for freedom, the colonial state and planter class imposed more stringent measures to deny Africans the right to organize as workers, and the possibility of planting rice and expanding their land holdings. Every effort by Africans to grow rice between 1838 and 1860 was unsuccessful, firstly because of the clash in reaping times with sugar and the intransigence of the planter class to allow production to continue; and secondly because of the problems of drainage and irrigation and the inhospitable atmosphere which existed between sugar and rice husbandry. A third major problem is the layout of village lands, which has been a millstone around the necks of African villagers. After 1850, all village lands had to be laid out in small, miniscule parcels. This was one of the primary factors for the drainage and irrigation nightmare of the villages. There is a direct relationship between sugar's need for cheap labor, and the laws which were enacted to stop the advance of the African population in their quest to enlarge the freedoms gained in the early 1840s.

Faced with the rise of the second slavery in Cuba, Brazil, and the USA and stiff competition from slave produced sugar on the world market, land control and other mechanisms were instituted to keep African labor attached, available and cheap in the post-emancipation period. Land laws passed between 1838 and 1861 prevented Africans from expanding their dream of independence outside the villages, while the indentured contract tied East Indian immigrants in perpetual servitude to the estates of residency. East Indian labor did not replace African labor, but was used as a mechanism to discipline the African workforce. The indentured contract was used to transform the African workforce into "a reserve army of labor." The land laws which encircled the African workforce and the implementation of the indentured contract to keep East Indian laborers in slave like living and working arrangements were two sides of the same coin. Both were designed to keep African and East Indian labor cheap and available; to corral and keep both groups of laborers within the bounds of the established plantation space, thus preventing them from planting new crops including rice in commercial quantities. This is why the rice industry did not develop until after the stringent land laws were relaxed and watered down in the 1890s.

Land control laws passed by the British colonial state in 1836 and expanded in 1839, 1851, and 1861 upped the asking price for Crown lands in parcels of 100 acres at one British pound and later to five and ten dollars per acre respectively. Having exhausted all their savings in the villages, the African population could not afford to buy land in one hundred acre plots at such exorbitant prices, much less pay for the cost of draining and irrigating these lands. In the absence of government, drainage and irrigation which should have been centrally organized and managed was the sole responsibility of land owners. A lack of a central drainage and irrigation authority was an important bugbear in the development of agriculture outside of sugar. The Crown lands regulations which made it virtually impossible for Africans and East Indians to acquire lands outside the established regions under planter control remained official policy until 1898, when the attention of the colonial office shifted to the need for an alternative to sugar, and hence a landed peasantry became permissible outside of the established sugar industry. The prohibitive crown lands regulation in force since 1839 was relaxed in 1898 to allow for plots of 100 acres and homestead lots of 25 acres to be made available at the asking price of 15 and 10 cents per acre respectively. The changed attitude to land gave the impetus to the rise of the East Indian rice peasantry. The phenomenal growth of the rice industry after 1898 was related to the shift in land policy, which had nothing to do with the benevolence of the colonial ruling classes, but was related to the global crisis of the cane sugar industry and the survival of the planter class in the colony.

In the final analysis, Afro-Guyanese were denied the possibility of engagement as equal partners in the rice industry because of the stringent land and labor policies which the colonial ruling classes employed during the course of the 19th century. The end result of these regulations was lopsided development of the colony after 1900, and this accounts in part for some of the problems, economic, ethnic, political, and social, of modern Guyana.

Posted September 10th. 2008 - by Wyck Williams

When he entered the University of the West Indies (Mona) in the late 1960s his name was Michael Hutchinson; a former student of Harrison College, Barbados (one of the island's elite high schools); from a privileged white family. When he returned nine years later to his island home he had changed. He was Ras Ikael Tafari, lush beard wearer of his new faith, and fierce believer in the prophetic eminence of Haile Selassie I.

He would join the faculty of Social Sciences UWI (Cave Hill) as lecturer. From his campus base he would become active in Pan African affairs, joining the Pan African Commission in 1997. In 2004 he was appointed its director.

The task here: how to explain the transitions and transformation of this extraordinary individual?

He was a student during the Walter Rodney street upheavals in '68. So volcanic was that event it would take many years for the fallout of cultural values and assumptions to resettle. A rearrangement of the social boundaries between blacks, browns and whites was in full swing in the early 70s. Had he chosen a different island campus (say, St Augustine) or faculty programme (Medicine) he might have been sufficiently insulated from events & temptations of the time.

Many students, bearing the heaviness of parental expectations, elected to rise above the turmoil. They stayed focused on tertiary aspirations, arguing, this is not my island; no need to feel connected. It seemed a rational, commonsense approach. It was adopted by, for instance, many Indians from Trinidad, many blacks from the Bahamas.

Ikael's immersion into the Nyabinghi faith was gradual. Changes in his features were the first signs of inner transformation: from clean-faced innocence to facial hairiness, marijuana'd eyes, his general appearance roughened-up as if to blur his distinctive island origins.

His language and modes of communing slowly altered. The tools of academic discourse were put aside or interspersed with the messianic I-Words of Rasta I-Manity. At times a self-conscious smile on his face seemed to question what he was doing: entering himself, entering the moment on the island.

But these were in many ways extraordinary post-Rodney times. Youth culture had been at the forefront of rebellious activity in European capitals (Paris in '68). Some of that youth optimism carried over to the 70s in Jamaica where praises to 'de youth' formed part of an ascendant reggae romanticism.

At the same time a unique confluence of brilliant teachers, students, pioneers in thought and creativity had emerged in Kingston; young men & women in the prime of their intellectual & creative life: among them Vaughn Lewis, Kamau Brathwaite, Rex Nettleford (professors); Owen Arthur, Bruce Golding, Ralph Gonsalves (students) Bob Marley, U Roy, Count Ossie (music pioneers).

With minds & talents functioning at their highest capacity, the campus was bright with ideas for changing the course of Caribbean history & politics. Few were aware of the roles and destinies they would later be asked to fill.

Among his friends Ikael encouraged a kind of introspective "reasoning", a variant of Walter Rodney's "groundings" with the underclass. They were in effect interpersonal (I & I) "conversations"; confessional at the beginning, argumentative often; filled with student impulse and hypothesis.

Listening you sensed his anxiety about his blue-eyed identity, the "sins" of his privileged upbringing. He worried, too, about his postgraduate role in an intellectually unaccommodating region (how would he fit back in?). Jamaica offered a laboratory for experiment and redefinition.

In the 60s Jamaica was the island for transient souls eager to fulfill escapist longings. Playgrounds of pleasure could be found in its lovely music & liberating sex, in the fashion of dread and the bounty of marijuana. Tourists, who saw no need for caution in those days, flocked to the North coast to sample & indulge illicit freedoms. After Rodney "conscious" students discovered the wayward possibilities for (self) discovery if they ventured into the wards and valleys of Kingston.

In Ikael's conversations there were early indications of what he would later become: the good shepherd of the Nyabinghi, its philosopher-scribe. Not just giving intellectual validation to the faith, or working in an advocacy role (as trade union rep, or academic housekeeper). He believed the Ras had the power to transform & rebuild the region's human resources after the depredations of plantation. "Rastafari is the most important consciousness to have arisen in the 20th century." he has said. The House of Nyabinghi would be his new psychic home.

Here our thinking diverged. It was hard to conceive of Rastafari as a transferable faith rippling down the Eastern C/bean islands. Surface aspects - the drumming & redemptive promises, the breakaway language constantly at war with local evil-doers and Babylon's materialism - might appeal to groups languishing on the margins. But old ways and habits like seedbeds sometimes need raking up before new faith could take root.

Message and island might be viewed as incompatible. In his island home, for instance, the historical imbalance between colonizer and colonized had stabilized into a feel-safe working pact between tourist & islander, proprietor & resident. It was a pact for which there was unspoken consensus and measurable economic progress. To return to that context with messages of a radical reordering of lives, with calls to re-examine the collective well-being of former slaves, would raise anxiety levels. Barriers of resistance would go up.

In Jamaica tiny ironies caught your attention. Though "the masses" listened to the pro-active message in Bob Marley's Get up, Stand up, and wept when they remembered Zion, their hearts - believing deliverance would come from above, not from abroad - felt comforted singing along to the bouncy hope of Max Romeo's Let the power fall on I.

Our student minds turned often to issues of island sexuality. How to explain the nexus of unreflecting, carnal males, those luscious women, the batty-bwoy obsession? There were readily available theories linking behaviours to 'persistent poverty', ignorance, unemployable rude energies, the groiny power of the powerless (or the island's peculiar legacy from the plantation - its testosterone blessings & curse.)

Whatever the cause, practices and norms could be changed, communities rehabilitated. Ikael was confident change would begin when islanders looked to Africa and embraced the transforming values & majesty of the Ras.

I followed his return through news and internet reports. I didn't think he would complete his postgraduate studies. I imagined him remaining in Jamaica, hirsute beyond recognition, and missing a few teeth; having resolved to exchange the (material) trappings of one island for the (spiritual) wrappings of another

A newspaper interview in 2002 sounded ominous. In it he felt compelled to affirm (for aspersions were being cast) his blackness and black roots. ("My Creator has already decided by my mother's line that I am black.") He cited a Marcus Garvey's definition of blackness in ardent defence. I had a flashback to colonial Guyana, and a half-white vagrant (named Walker) who defended himself when anyone looked at him hard. He'd screamed that he was "British"; children sometimes threw stones and called him, "Walker the nigger!"

In 2003 I heard of the launching of his book Rastafari in Transition: Politics of Cultural Confrontation in Africa and the Caribbean (1966-1988) Volume 1. He talked about the unfinished nature of "his work"; the dry interest shown by an old-thinking UWI academy. He issued apocalyptic warnings ("We are in the last hour of time. Look at Daniel 1, read from verse 36.")

I read of his appointment in 2004 as Director of the Commission for Pan African Affairs - "I have waited a long time in my life for the opportunity to make this contribution." - and the trust placed in him by the Barbadian Govt. The appointment was met with disquiet even in Rastafarian circles. Angry messages questioned whether a white Barbadian face was "truly representative" of Pan African affairs. (In 2008 it was reported he'd been "fired" from the position.)

As for death and its incalculability Ikael spoke back then with the coolness of indestructible youth, as if the lining of his lion heart could hold off the encroachment of mundane infections. (Statins and cholesterol were not yet a conspicuous part of the vocabulary of physical wellbeing.) Belief in the power of Jah, in the moral universe of the Ras would form a natural mystic firewall, unbreachable by the diseases of Babylon.

It is tempting to consider his state of mind in his last hours on earth. From all accounts he had gone to T/dad to deliver a lecture on African Liberation. At some point he complained of feeling unwell and returned to his hotel bed. Later he was discovered unconscious, and pronounced dead at the hospital (apparently of heart attack.) Difficult, then, to imagine the conversation with himself as he waited for that gathered cardiac storm to pass; as he slipped from "consciousness" into that silent zone (or Zion) of hereafter.

An extraordinary individual in a time of extraordinary events, he dared as student to leap into realities outside theory & textbook, mastering the knowledge he found there. He seemed determined to redirect the narrative of his life, to construct a new persona fusing elements from the African continent and his dismantled island psyche.

Those who joined his conversations will remember the way he showed up after days of island trod, looking loose, street-weathered, the blue eyes ablaze with new I-World "visions"; his metamorphosis in fevered progress. Sceptical as some of us remained, the conversations helped adjust our thinking about the world. His evolving faith-based sureness of self threw light on roads not taken, the labours of One Love now lost.

It was good and pleasant to know him. In those seminal student years he was Lion of the void. Yes, I.