Posted April 10th. 2002 - Special Feature by David Hinds

Answering WPA's Critics

Not for the first time a WPA action that coincides with one by the PNC is seen by some PPP supporters as some sort of betrayal of the PPP. This is the case with GAP-WPA's MP Sheila Holder's walkout from parliament during the 2002 budget debate.

The PPP has a history of trying to tell the WPA how to act. During the anti-dictatorial struggle the PPP told the WPA not to organize in Indian communities. It also tried to instruct the WPA on how to fight against the dictatorship. Later in the mid-1980's it told the WPA to purge itself of social democrats and religious elements.

The point is that differences between the WPA and the PPP are historical. It must be, for the two parties are poles apart in their views of Guyana's present, past, and future. One sees and uses racial division as a vehicle to power; the other works for a solution to the racial problems. One sees governmental power as the reward for struggle and an end in itself; the other sees governmental power as a vehicle to continue the struggle for democracy and empowerment.

One panders to international capital as a means of consolidating power; the other sees the building of a national economy as a prerequisite for nationhood. One wants racial peace without racial justice; the other wants racial justice as a prerequisite and a companion of racial peace. One sees politics purely in terms of electoral numbers; the other sees politics in terms of security and empowerment for all regardless of the demographic dynamics. One sees governance in Guyana as a partnership of the senior and the junior; the others sees governance as partnership based on mutual respect, equitable distribution of responsibility and decision-making, and the development of a shared destiny.

Yet these differences did not deter the WPA from relentlessly forging an alliance with the PPP in the fight against the PNC dictatorship. The WPA felt then and it feels now that the sovereignty of the Guyanese people-- all of its races--is best protected when all energies are mobilized against threats, internal and external, to that sovereignty. During the first 26 years of independence, the WPA felt that the PNC threatened and actually derailed the sovereignty and dignity of the Guyanese people and it fought alone and with others to restore them. Since the demise of dictatorship is not an automatic guarantee of democracy, justice, and freedom for all, the WPA did not and does not see October 1992 as the end of the struggle for those principles.

It is in that context that it has responded to PPP governance, sometimes forcefully, sometimes feebly, over the last decade. If the PPP believes in democracy as it says it does, then whey does it scream at the democratic right to dissent? If the WPA has betrayed its historical relationship with the PPP, it is because the PPP has betrayed its stated commitment to a democracy based on racial and class justice and shared governance.

Was it not the PPP that in 1992 squandered a golden opportunity to tap the skills and energy of the WPA in aiding the process of racial and political reconciliation that were pivotal to a post-dictatorship political stability and socio-economic advance? It instead resorted to deriding the WPA for doing "badly" at the polls and demonizing its activists in the same manner as the PNC had done.

The WPA has no formal relations with the PNC. Most WPA activists understandingly still have difficulty even relating informally to the PNC as a party and to some individuals of the old days. But regardless of the WPA's historical problem with the PNC, that party is not the government of the day; it is part of the "outsiders" which we euphemistically call the opposition. It legitimately represents in electoral terms almost half of the population and as such cannot be ignored.

The irony is that the PPP support PNC stances more often than any other party. The PPP is officially in dialogue with the PNC but rebukes any other party that speaks to the PNC. If the PNC is so evil, why are they having dialogue with it? The PPP supports the PNC's stance against Power Sharing. The PPP supported the PNC in rushing both the 1997 and 2001 elections. The PPP supported the PNC in frustrating genuine constitutional reform.

PPP people like to invoke Walter Rodney to put down the WPA. They use Rodney and they distort Rodney to throw dirt at the WPA. But was it not the PPP that called Rodney adventurist and referred to him in limiting terms such as "black intellectual?" It was Dr. Jagan himself who during the 1980 election campaign told Indian audiences derisively that Rodney promised them a new government as a Christmas present and they instead got his body on a platter. Is it not the PPP who dismissed from the party some of its own members because they associated with Rodney?

I submit with maximum certainty that if Walter were alive today, the PPP would deem him a racist and a PNC collaborator because he would have been, among the things, actively opposed to the marginalization of African Guyanese in the same way that he and the WPA opposed Indian Guyanese marginalization under the PNC. Walter would have been fighting against official corruption and government high handedness. He would have been fighting for power sharing and he would have had no use for a parliament that merely rubber stamps government acts.

If the PPP love Walter Rodney so much, why after ten years in office, it has not brought his killers to justice?

Brother Tacuma Ogunseye, Dr Clive Thomas and other WPA African-Guyanese members have been attacked for articulating the plight of African Guyanese and working with groups such as ACDA. People are implying that because multi-racialism is part of the WPA's ideology, its members cannot defend the interests and integrity of their own race group. Multi-racialism does not mean abandoning one's racial heritage; it means among other things, respect for all races including your own.

WPA is against the ideology of racial superiority. WPA members do not support African thuggery against Indians or any other group. They do not support the manipulation of the African plight for political gains. They work for the liberation and empowerment of Africans, even as they work for the empowerment of all Guyanese. A genuine and stable multi-racial Guyana must include a culturally, economically and politically empowered African Guyanese community. In multi-racial societies, cultural, economic and political disparities lead to notions of racial superiority and inferiority. Dr. Jagan understood this well when he correctly observed that most Africans in Guyana and elsewhere are at the bottom of the ladder.

The WPA has always stood up for and with Indians whenever they are under attack. This is what Rodney, Kwayana and others did when they campaigned to save Arnold Rampersaud's life and when they fought to prevent Africans from acting on PNC anti-Indian propaganda during the 1977 sugar strike. WPA was the first party to raise and agitate against political motivated kick-down-the door banditry against Indians in 1980 WPA openly lent solidarity to the Indian teachers on the Correntyne in their struggle against their union and the government in the 1970s. It was the WPA that in 1983 organized Indians on the West Coast to join with Africans from Linden in a joint struggle for bread and justice-- an action that was actively opposed by the PPP.

Despite attempts to paint a contrary picture, the WPA very quickly and clearly condemned the attacks on Indians after the 1997 and 2001 elections. It was WPA African members during the post-election disturbances last year that were most vocal in speaking directly to Africans about their senseless attacks on Indians. These acts were not meant to win Indian votes; they are part of The WPA's value system that demand solidarity with the downpressed and discriminated. We have short memories, but please remember that the Africans in the WPA fought tooth and nail against the African dictatorship. For the WPA, racial solidarity is not an option in the face of injustice.

Finally, the death of the WPA has been proclaimed many times since 1992. It is as if some people take a sadistic pleasure in urging on the demise of the party. Only they can explain their fear of a living WPA. If the WPA is a dying party, it is because Guyana is dying. When the organized conscience of a society begins to die, it is clear that that society's hold on life is fragile.

Those who institutionalized and nurture racial division know that they are immobilizing the WPA, for it cannot compete in that arena. When they refuse to work for genuine racial solidarity and shared governance they know they are immobilizing the WPA. When they chase WPA members to foreign lands in order to make a living, they know that they are immobilizing the WPA. But life is not a straight line and politics is not a one-sided affair. When they rule without accountability and take corruption to scandalous heights, they revive the WPA. When they continue to make a mockery of democracy and condemn the poor to more poverty, they revive the WPA.

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.