Posted April 9th. 2002 - Special Feature by David Hinds

The Dialogue Changed Nothing

PNC leader, Desmond Hoyte's recent announcement of a pause in the dialogue between himself and President Jagdeo and his warning that there could be trouble if the PPP does not change its attitude towards the dialogue seem to have taken the PPP and some pundits by surprise. Just two weeks ago in a letter to Stabroek News, I pointed to this weakness in our political discourse whereby we ignore the potential consequences of halfway measures only to castigate leaders when these measures fail to yield the desired results.

Now that Mr. Hoyte and the PNC have acted on their dissatisfaction with the dialogue they are being wrongly charged with being divisive. Mr. Hoyte is saying nothing that some of us have not been saying for the last year-only a few weeks ago I was hauled over the coals by Stabroek News for saying what Mr. Hoyte has now confirmed. If the PNC is wrong about the dialogue, it is their belief that it would yield a change in the governance culture. Mr. Hoyte is once again being unfairly charged with making threats to make the country unstable or ungovernable. One must distinguish between threats and warnings of threatening situations. Although political leaders generally take advantage of, and sometimes exacerbate instability, political motion is not always entirely dictated by leaders.

The truth is that, Hoyte or no Hoyte, Guyana has been and will remain unstable and ungovernable until we settle the question of an equitable racial distribution of decision-making. The PPP is surprised at the recent PNC move because they thought they had the PNC covered so long as Mr. Hoyte is in dialogue and he not disposed to power sharing. What an elementary mistake!

The ball is now in the PPP's court. Since power sharing is not on the agenda, they must salvage the dialogue, which means implementing the decisions made by the two leaders. And since the PPP is unlikely to do that, instability beckons. This reinforces my contention that the dialogue is a holding mechanism, not a lasting one. It has reached its limit. Now we must move to a more inclusive mechanism or face renewed instability as Mr. Hoyte correctly predicts.

Governance and Murder

Two major functions of government are (1) maintenance of order and (2) protection of the rights and respect for the liberties of the individual citizen. However, good governance does not mean executing one of these functions at the expense of the other; there has to be commitment to achieve a balance between the two. Exercise of rights and liberties in the context of disorder spells chaos and anarchy. Order without respect for rights and liberties amounts to tyranny. Therefore, both order and rights and liberties (freedom) are relative.

There is another aspect of governance. Governance without legitimacy--whereby a wide cross-section of the society empowers the government and accepts its right to govern--invariably facilitates and nurture instability and disorder. Such a government must resort to imposing its rulership through fear, bribery, coercion and deception. Its very existence spawns disorder, which it then pretends is the work of its enemies, and therefore crushes it in the name of law and order. When a society reaches such a point, life becomes "short, nasty, and brutish" to borrow from a noted philosopher. The law of unreason takes over. And since this point of deadliness is merely the culmination of a long process of force, ignorance, arrogance, hate, gamesmanship, and alienation, the impact is severe.

This is the democratic Guyana that we run around like silly school boys patting ourselves on the back about--a jungle of terror, torment and hopelessness. We have lost most the dignity left to us by the blood of the enslaved and colonized. We are forced by the logic of our condition to mourn the bandit yesterday and celebrate the killer--cop today. The bandit and the killer-cop reflect our collective dance with the devil. When a people are forced to smother their poverty and ignorance and dance with the devil of race-baiting and man's inhumanity to man, the governors must hang their heads in severe shame.

The recent murders of Shaka Blair and Leon Fraser are part of the time bomb that Guyana has been since 1992. We negotiated our rescue from authoritarianism, but sadly we have badly screwed up the expected road to freedom, dignity, and justice. The PNC took us to the cemetery, but the PPP has proceeded to bury Guyana alive.

Shaka's murder is what it is--murder of a young life by a state run by a government without legitimacy. Fraser's murder is what it is--murder by a culture that justifiably sees the police as enemy number one. This is the shame we hold up to the world. As Carl Hopper's artists hold aloft the Busta Shield, the Buxtonions hold aloft their anger, frustration and yes, their aimlessness.

I said it before and I repeat it today--the overriding problem is governance. We can't escape it. Modern society is organized as nation-states of classes, races, ethnicity, and genders bound together by common identities and interests with an understanding that they share the common resources and the responsibility and burdens of governance. When the latter fails to materialize, pre-nation sentiments rule.

How can our two maximum leaders and leaderships after one year of dialogue have such divergent perceptions of the Shaka Blairs of our Guyana? Buxton led the tide that took them into dialogue. Buxton erupts after one year of dialogue. The same holes, barricades, bullets, and police force are there in Buxton one year later. But today pellets pierce the skin of young villagers.

Shaka is a victim of the PNC's political antics that pay lip service to the African plight but is unprepraed to elevate it to pride of place on its agenda. He is also the victim of PPP's spitefulness that passes for governance.

Dr Hinds is a University Lecturer and Political Commentator and Activist. He currently teaches Political Science at Glendale College and Mt San Antonio College in California. Please send your comments on this article to dhinds6106@aol.com. An archive of Dr Hinds' other writings can be found on his website-guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com.