Posted May 22nd. 2005 - Special Feature by David Hinds

Self-reliance, Self-organization and Self Emancipation and the African Guyanese condition

This is the text of an interview done in August 2004 on the television program, Plain Talk

Plain Talk: This is Plain Talk. We had a panel discussion with Dr. David Hinds, Mr. David Grainger and Ms. Hazel Woolford discussing the abolition of slavery, the emancipation of the slaves. Today, we bring back one of those panelists, Dr. David Hinds, who has been talking during the period following that Plain Talk about the state and status of the African Guyanese. Dr. Hinds, welcome to Plain Talk again.

DH: Thank you very much Chris. I seem to be a regular now. You should give me part-ownership of the program.

Plain Talk: You have it. It carries tremendous responsibility. Now if we can turn - you've been speaking, you've spoken at Buxton, you've spoken on the West Bank of Demerara. What is the message you are taking out to the African Guyanese community?

DH: Well, let me say, the message is in two parts. The first part of the message is a recognition of where we are, where African Guyanese are economically and politically--the general condition of the African Guyanese community. And I try to be as honest as I can in my account or my sense of where the community is at the moment. The second part of the message is that although African Guyanese are not located where they ought to be located within the general political economy, there is still a little scope to begin to do some things on their own. So it's really an assessment of where the community is and a message of self-reliance, self-organization and self emancipation in the Walter Rodney tradition.

Plain Talk: Let's take those one at a time. Where is the African Guyanese, what is the state and status of the African Guyanese politically at this time?

DH: Politically, the African Guyanese community is disempowered. Politics in Guyana is driven by the majoritarian principle whereby the political party that wins the majority controls the levers of power in the society. In the case of Guyana, where as we know, political parties are organized along racial lines, it means that the party that gets into power controls the levers of power. And given the smallness of the economic pie, given the kind of adversarial politics that exists in the society, the party that wins feels no moral obligation to include the others in decision-making, in the exercise of power. And that is compounded by the fact that in the case of the PPP, which controls a majority of the population, they have the majority Indian vote and that Indian vote is locked up, so the PPP is guaranteed power. So because of that guarantee of the Indian vote…

Plain Talk: That's numerical supremacy?

DH: Yes that is numerical supremacy. They are guaranteed the Indian vote; they do not have to pander, if you will, to the interests of the other side. Let me just take it back to the PNC days. The PNC was always a minority government. And they were always conscious that they were a minority, even though they would have rigged elections. They knew that if they were to govern they had to take cognizance of the fact that the Indians existed. The PPP doesn't have the same kind of burden.

Plain Talk: Are you justifying the rigging of elections?

DH: No I'm not justifying the rigging of elections. I'm saying that even with the rigging of elections, the PNC could not totally control or contain Indians. That's the point I'm making. That even with the rigging of elections they could not ignore Indians in the way the PPP could ignore Africans. And the PPP could ignore Africans because we are in a "democratic" electoral system and in so far as that democratic electoral process operates the PPP is guaranteed the Indian vote. And so, therefore, it doesn't really have to consider that they need to look after the interests of Africans. And so I'm saying that to say that it adds to the structural and historical problems that African Guyanese have had in this country. So politically they are disempowered in the sense that the government of the day, which does not represent their interests, has the power to determine the allocation of resources--who gets what, when and where. Let's take for example contracts. That's a big thing. You're talking about multi-million dollars being given out in contracts. And for the most part African Guyanese are not located in that sector partly because those who are close to the ruling party are being transformed over night into contractors. People who have no idea about contracting are big contractors. And partly because the powers that be stress that you have to have a track record of contracting. Who gets a road where, who gets a school where, who gets the big jobs, who gets the super salaries are all determined by the government of the day. So being in control of the government carries with it enormous power in terms of the allocation of resources. Now we don't have a lot of resources in Guyana compared with other countries but in so far as there are resources it is the government of the day that has the….

Plain Talk: Authority

DH: Yes, the authority to allocate it and that government is really not responsive to the African Guyanese.

Plain Talk: Now in suggesting that purely on the basis of the numbers the PPP can ignore the African Guyanese, is it not the fault of the PNC that has been there for over two decades that didn't do enough to empower its own people?

DH: I do. Yes… responsibility, because I don't really want to cast blame. I want to put it in historical context. When the PNC came to power they came up against certain forces. One of the problems they had to deal with was the fact that they were a minority government and that carried with it certain problems. So you begin by rigging elections but rigging elections is not enough so that you start encroaching on civil liberties and this brings you into conflict with the rest of society, even your own supporters. So there was that challenge. And there was the international challenge. Imperialism-- in those days we were in the middle of the Cold War--brought with it a sort of global challenge. But also more importantly, the PNC had to deal with the real forces within the society. So on the one hand, you were dealing with an entrenched Indian, and Portuguese and to a lesser extent Chinese commercial class, which had a lock, if you will, on that sector and it was a reality that if you went too far, if the PNC went too far in crushing that, then they would crush the very economy on which they depended for resources to dispense to their supporters. But more than that, the challenge was what do you do with your African Guyanese constituency. Do you empower them in a way in which they become independent? Now if they become independent then that independence itself begins to work against you. So I think the PNC pursued what I would call broad programs that were aimed at giving the African Guyanese some semblance of security. It would be unfair to the PNC to say that they did absolutely nothing for Africans. Africans were encouraged in certain areas. The government paid a lot of attention to bauxite in a way this government is not doing. But what it did not do was to facilitate the translation of what I would call surface things into fundamental transformation of the African Guyanese community. So that at the end of the day while the PNC made certain efforts in consolidating its hold on the African Guyanese community by dispensing certain clientelist favors, it did not go deep enough into empowering sections of the African Guyanese community. And African Guyanese today are feeling the effects of that. It is also not fair to say that it was just the PNC, because the colonials before actively worked against African Guyanese empowerment. And so the PNC came in and really continued that, even though they made certain efforts in a certain direction. So I would posit that African Guyanese disempowerment has been historically driven by slavery and colonialism but taken to a new level by the PNC.

Plain Talk: You talk about the political disempowerment?

DH: Yes.

Plain Talk: Is it a structural problem that would disempower forty percent of the population of a country?

DH: Yes because you are dealing with a majoritarian system and if you are not a majority you are kept out.

Plain Talk: It doesn't matter whether you're forty or five?

DH: It doesn't matter if you're forty or five; you are disempowered because you are out of the halls of power. I was at a conference in St. Kitts recently and a professor asked what did I mean when I said one race wins and wins everything and the other race loses and loses everything. He asked whether I was not exaggerating? And I did not dodge the question because there were some other Guyanese academics in the room that answered for me. I said when you lose you lose everything because majoritarianism from the Westminster standpoint assumes that we fight for this prize but when the prize is won we find a way to incorporate the "losers" into the framework. I like to say we have a Westminster framework but we do not have a Westminster culture. In Westminster the structure, if it is to work, there has to be a culture of inclusiveness. We don't have a culture of inclusiveness in Guyana.

Plain Talk: And in addition, in the Westminster model you have very powerful local government and so on.

DH: Yes

Plain Talk: So it is the decentralization.

DH: People can still organize outside of political parties in what you call civil society and so all those pressures are brought to bear on those who hold power. That is absent from Guyana, because when you win you win everything. And the other thing you have to remember about the Guyanese political system in that unlike the rest of the world, in Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean, the private sector is dependent on government. We are state-driven. Even after the demise of our flirtation with socialism we still are state-driven and the party controls the state. And so the private sector in Guyana is not as independent say as the private sector in Latin America or Asia or the United States. So government-- those who hold power-- have this lock on all aspects of society and that is where the power flows from.

Plain Talk: So there is a structural disempowerment--the whole system.

DH: The system operates against minorities and Africans are a minority in Guyana. And the other thing we can't get pass is that local government provided people in their communities, particularly in the villages with some modicum of responsibility and power in their communities. So within the local government system you had your village councilors who were villagers. So at a certain level you were responsible for the backlands, the farms, the drainage, certain level of education and so on. You could exert some level of influence where you live. The PNC broke up the village council systems and lumped four or five villages together in Neighborhood Councils. What they did there was to remove the concentration of power in small areas and put it in wide areas so in that way political parties could then manipulate the system. This led to the further disempowerment of African Guyanese, because African Guyanese in their villages were able to exert some degree of influence over decision-making. When you look at some of the old politicians that came out of that system you understand what I am talking about. And so the removal of that created a void if you will, because the village councils, the village arrangement were training grounds for new leaders. It was a place where people who were not caught up in national politics could then learn how to manage their own affair, how to function as leaders. So we lost that nursery for new leadership in the African Guyanese community.

Plain Talk: Now you said that the PPP can afford to ignore the African Guyanese in that they don't rely on them for electoral victory. In fact, even if it can, has it in fact done so after all? The Prime Minister throughout the PPP tenure in government, you have Ministers Jeffery, Westford, and Collymore. You have African Guyanese holding key positions in the PPP government and administration. Is that ignoring?

DH: Yes. That doesn't deal with the problem at all.

Plain Talk: Are you being cynical here?

DH: No. I'm not being cynical. I'm being factual. That's a model that both parties have used in order to demonstrate that they are multi-racial. I think both parties recognize very early that they are not going to shift the masses; they are not going to shift the people on the ground. So that one way of beginning to deal with this problem was to give this semblance of multi-racialism at the top by putting African people in key positions in the PPP and Indians in key positions in the PNC. But experience has shown that when crunch time comes these Indians in the PNC do not exercise any kind of power over decisions.

Plain Talk: And the same thing in the PPP?

DH: Yes, the same thing in the PPP. If you look at the last PNC election, for example, most of the Indians were voted off the executive. And when you look at the PPP, Dr. Luncheon has said publicly--I was on a program with him on Independence Day and one of the panelists was saying that what could change Guyana is if the PPP were to have a black leader-- that an Indian PPP leader is not on. From the outside we think that Dr Luncheon exercises a lot of power in the PPP.

Plain Talk: How do the African Guyanese masses conceive of people like those we mentioned before and you brought in another one just now, Dr. Luncheon. How do the African Guyanese view the Africans with positions in the PPP?

DH: With contempt . If you are not part of the PNC tribe you are seen as an enemy and you are viewed with contempt by African Guyanese. And objectively they don't relate to, they have no kind of relationship to the African Guyanese community. Therefore they are not perceived as bringing anything to the African Guyanese community. In actuality, they don't because physically they are not welcomed in those communities. It is bad. It is as bad as that. So no, I don't think it makes any difference in terms of African Guyanese political empowerment. This is the complexity of Guyanese politics. When Mr. Sam Hinds was maneuvered out of the presidency by Mrs. Jagan and President Jagdeo, Africans used that as evidence that the PPP had no intention whatsoever of including African Guyanese in the upper echelons of decision-making in the party and government.

Plain Talk: Let's turn to the state and status of the African Guyanese in the economic milieu. Are there any statistics to support anything we are going to be talking about?

DH: Yes, Professor Clive Thomas did a seminal paper in 1997 at an ACDA conference in which he showed, that for example, the level of poverty where the average would have been I think was 36 percent but yet African Guyanese were at 43 percent. He relied a lot on those figures from the 1992 survey. Since then he has done another report, a 2002 report based on the 1999 survey. That report dealt with poverty within an urban-rural framework and showed that urban poverty has dropped. It has dropped since 1992 . So there is the presumption that African Guyanese are not as poor as they were ten years before. The problem with that is that urban today doesn't necessarily mean black. If you look at Georgetown today, it is about 60 percent Black, 40 percent Indian.

Plain Talk: So there are no real statistics for the ethnic group?

DH: None for the ethnic group. So one has to just look at where Africans are located and make a determination from that.

Plain Talk: So tell us, what those prove, where does the African Guyanese stand economically?

DH: African Guyanese used to be in the public sector, working for government. But with all the downsizing over the years, that sector has shrunk. So that they are not located there as they used to be. But curiously African Guyanese, although they are in the public service, they are located at the middle and lower echelons of the public service. Being in the public service makes them most vulnerable to the global imperatives, because globalization and structural adjustment bring with them a certain attack on the government sector.

Plain Talk: Again, Dr. Hinds, and I don't particularly want to interrupt you. Where is the evidence that they are at the middle and lower rounds of the public service?

DH: Just look at who are the people at the top. Who are the Permanent Secretaries? Who are running the Ministries? African Guyanese are also located a lot in the protective services--the police and the army. There is this notion that because African Guyanese are predominately in the army and the police they control military power. My position is that that does not translate into empowerment, it does not translate into economic empowerment. Because people in the police and the army are not paid much. That is why there is so much corruption in the police force. But more than that it is really an illusion to think that the police and the army somehow would jump unto the streets and defend African Guyanese. African Guyanese have found that out. Now who are the people shooting down African Guyanese young men? It is African Guyanese police. Who are the people who are hiring themselves as phantoms? They are people who were once in the security services. So there is this notion that because African Guyanese are in the protective services it brings with it some kind of security. We've got to begin to look at that. There are new security agencies--of course, there is need now for a lot of security because of the crime. It is the fastest growing economic sector. Now if you look at that sector you see the same trend. Most of the people who work those security jobs as guards are African Guyanese. Most of the big companies are not owned by African Guyanese. There are some small ones owned by African Guyanese. Let's turn to the bauxite industry. It used to employ up to 5,000 people seven years ago, but today it employs a mere 400 people. So that it means that the entire community in Linden, which depended on the bauxite company for sustenance, is in a great economic depression. You're talking about 5,000 jobs lost. There is no private sector to absorb them. Our private sector is small to begin with and Africans are not located there in large numbers. Linden is perhaps the most depressed of the depressed communities in the country. The government has put a lot of money into sugar.

Plain Talk: The government has also put money into bauxite because we are subsidizing the bauxite industry.

DH: It is not as much as is put into the sugar industry. We often look at inputs. The government did this and the government did that. But what did they lead to? What are the outcomes? Do those things lead to empowerment? I have said it before the PPP in twelve years has built more roads, has built more schools, and has repaired more schools in the African Guyanese community than the PNC did in 28 years. I am unapologetic about that.

Plain Talk: That the PPP has done in African areas?

DH: Yes, in African areas. And that's the truth. However, if you're building schools but you aren't concentrating on what goes into the schools, you are only doing the job quarter way.

Plain Talk: You're talking about the teachers, the facilities and so on?

DH: Yes, yes. But, are you just doing it so that people will say you spend money on African Guyanese communities? Or are you doing this because you have a vision of what you what this to do? Are you really genuine about dealing with the structural and real deep problems in the African Guyanese community? I am submitting that if the PPP were interested in dealing with the real problems it will not just build the schools and build the roads but it will build a program to comprehensively deal with the problems. In so far as the PPP has not done that…

Plain Talk: You mean in the communities?

DH: Yes in the communities. And in so far as the PPP has not done that I think they are guilty of contributing to the disempowerment of African Guyanese that others started.

Plain Talk: Now if we turn to the question of the role of the African Guyanese in race relations. And as you know we have set up a race commission and a non-Indian heads that. To what extent has the African Guyanese contributed to the decline in race relations or the improvement in race relations if you don't think there is a decline?

DH: The African Guyanese who…the African Guyanese people? The extent to which they have contributed to the decline?

Plain Talk: Yes. Or improvement of the state of race relations in Guyana?

DH: I think that we've got to see it in broad terms. Race relations in the country are driven by the competition for power. And insofar as the African Guyanese masses of people are involved with the political parties in this struggle for power then they themselves are part of the disintegration of race relations. In the same way the Indian masses that look to the PPP for a certain kind of security and so forth are involved in this competition. You see, both groups are insecure. It is economic insecurity and its political insecurity. In a real sense Indian Guyanese are also economically and politically insecure because they are poor. Nevertheless the difference here is the Indian Guyanese have what I call this notion of security. That is, because the PPP is in power the Indians tend to be less insecure because of the illusion of power.

Plain Talk: Dr. Hinds I'll ask you to stop here on this notion of security and insecurity. We'll take a short break…we've been talking to Dr. David Hinds as we discuss the role of the African Guyanese in our society today. Just before we took that break what you describe is there was only the notion of security among Indians. Can you pursue that point please?

DH: You see, the Indians fear domination by Africans, the Africans fear domination by Indians and it is that fear and that insecurity that really lead the two groups to behave towards each other the way they behave. I don't think we've reached the conflict stage yet. I think what we have seen is…

Plain Talk: Even if people were predicting that we were there?

DH: Yes, a lot of times we are at the edge of it. But I think the key there is if we understand the insecurity and the fear in these two communities we can begin to make some headway in terms of advancing corrective measures. Because Indians are insecure and they are afraid of domination by blacks they would then sit back and allow the PPP to get away with some things that in a different situation they will not allow them to get away with.

Plain Talk: Like what?

DH: For example, I don't think that the Indian community is as aggressive as it was under the PNC on the issue of corruption, or on the issue of police brutality or executions by the police. The Indian community was really up in arms during the PNC days on issues like that. But they tend not to be very aggressive today. I don't think that they don't recognize it. I think that they do recognize that the PPP is not behaving as they ought to behave.

Plain Talk: You've seen many letters that hailed for example, Mr. Gajraj

DH: Mr. Gajraj is a hero to Indians, because they see Mr. Gajraj and the PPP as protecting them. And, therefore, the political party understands that very well and plays to that..

Plain Talk: Are they wrong or are they - in Buxton for example the housing of bands of people - some call them criminals some call them freedom-fighters, carrying out acts of lawlessness against the rest of society. Essentially a black village carrying out lawlessness. Was there a basis for Indians to feel Gajraj was right?

DH: There is a basis for them to feel outraged. The other side talks about Gajraj and what he did but would not talk about what was done in Buxton to Indians. But Indians must also understand that the Buxton thing did not only consume Indians, it also consumed Buxton.

Plain Talk: When you say consume, what do you mean? Please explain that?

DH: What I mean is that there was a level of atrocity, which occurred during that period. Some of it was reported in the media and some was not reported. That was unacceptable. It destroyed Buxton as we know it. The African leadership concentrated on Gajraj as the problem, the Indian side concentrated on Buxton as the problem, but both were problems.

Plain Talk: But didn't the black Guyanese themselves hold up the Buxton "freedom-fighters" as the poster child of the Africans?

DH: But that's true in the same way the Indians held up Gajraj as their hero and both sides are wrong. Mr. Gajraj did not stop the so-called African freedom fighters. I think both sides are wrong. I think what both sides must recognize is that what we have had is the development of a political culture that is shaped and consumed by violence. Now at the end of the day, I think that justice ought to be done for those people who suffered as a result of what happened in Buxton, but the kind of justice that Mr. Gajraj and the PPP are alleged to have meted out through the phantom group is not acceptable. I disagree with that kind of justice.

Plain Talk: Dr. Hinds you are saying that the Indians have rallied to the PPP/ Gajraj side by the same token are you saying that the African Guyanese; the intellectual class, the middle class, the working class rallied to the side of the freedom fighters?

DH: And they are both wrong. That's what I'm saying-- if the state is going to systematically sit down and decide that it's going to murder citizens outside of the ambit of the rule of law that is unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. Because you see, political parties go but the state must remain.

Plain Talk: But we have a problem here because you are saying that both sides…

DH: I'm coming to the other side. Once you begin to put liberation of a people into the hands of those who are involved in crime and once you begin that violence what you put in place is a cycle of violence that comes back to consume all of us. So that you start off by these people attacking Indians and raping Indian women and you end up with them killing and raping African women. Therefore, both sides are wrong.

Plain Talk: So, as we discuss the - and the focus of this program is the African Guyanese - you are saying that the African Guyanese, the middle class, and so forth who have held up the Buxton freedom-fighters as this poster child they have contributed to a serious degeneration of race relations?

DH: They did, they did. And I want to be very clear about that. I want to alert the African Guyanese leadership, especially those in Buxton. I have spoken to people in Buxton who have said that they've seen none of these leaders since the project broke up.

Plain Talk: That means a lot. You call it the project?

DH: Yes, it was a project. And I don't want to get into details, but from the time those guys were arrested, nobody has gone into Buxton to deal with the trauma. And there is a lot of trauma in that village arising out of that thing.

Plain Talk: Let's turn to that - you and Andaiye, a woman's rights activist and long-standing political activist as well - it has been reported, you have gone into Buxton and have done some sort of talking in that community. Tell us about that.

DH: We have been saying that at the end of the day what we need is a civilized society. And while I am in full sympathy with what is happening in the Black community…in fact I think there is a rebellion going on in the Black community, the wider Black community and I think it is a justified rebellion.

Plain Talk: We're not talking about the arms?

DH: No, no. I am talking about a rebellion over their condition. That rebellion is deep-seated and sometimes we take it for granted. When you look at the economic condition of African Guyanese…when you look at what they perceive at the political level...when you look at the villages and you see women and children because the men have gone away to the islands to look for work, or have run away from their families or have gone to America or are in jail, it is serious in the Black community. I mean unemployment and under-employment are rife. I have never seen so many limers in the Black community as I've seen over the last five years or so. And people are objecting to that. They are objecting to the manner in which the PPP is unfeeling to their condition. They rebel by non-cooperation with the government within the Public Service and the armed forces; they rally to the PNC and they support anything that seems to challenge the PPP's hold on power.

Plain Talk: So what are you and Andaiye telling these people in the black community?

DH: Our message to them is look at the end of the day the African Guyanese condition will be settled when the question of power is settled at the national level.

Plain Talk: You're not saying that they have to wait for that to be settled?

DH: No, no. We are saying that is there, that is constant. But even as you do that, you've got to find space in your communities to begin to do some things for yourself to deal with your problems.

Plain Talk: Does that space exists?

DH: There is not much of it but we can squeeze some of that space. There is at least space to peacefully organize. Honestly nothing stops African Guyanese in their villages and their communities from beginning to meet and talk about their problems and how they can help to solve some of those problems. Unfortunately, that is not being done. You have to use political and social space to advance culturally and economically, because when you constructively use that space you are in effect creating more space for yourselves and in turn decreasing the space of the government and the state.

Plain Talk: Is it not the role you see for yourself and Andaiye?

DH: Yes, we feel that that is a role that we can play. We can help to motivate people in that direction. We can help to give Black people hope. But most importantly we can help Black People to understand that violence and racial antagonism and partisan struggles are not the only way out of their condition. Political parties have sapped the energies of the people. They bring them out on the streets in Georgetown, but when the people go back to their villages they do nothing to deal with their immediate bread and butter issues. They are not encouraged to do so.

So we believe that, for example, there are things we can begin to talk about in the African Guyanese community and in that sense we can start to build, to rebuild this process of self-reliance. In that sense I think there is some scope. We don't have an out and out dictatorship. We don't have that. So there is that space to do a certain kind of work. We believe that. We believe these communities can start to organize themselves, to begin to talk about their problems and find small ways to begin to correct the problem. There are some concrete bread and butter issues. For example, African Guyanese find it very difficult to get loans from the banks. So in their communities, they can begin to ask what can I do if I have $50,000? Those of us for example who have skills and contacts have to begin to go and ground in the spirit of Walter Rodney begin to help with their immediate problems. I am not being idealistic here because I don't think that will solve the problem in the long run. But I think it will begin to instill in the people a sense of self-reliance. But more than that it will channel that rebellion I was talking about now on to a righteous path. Because the way to fight oppression is not by shooting up, but by empowering yourself. So you go out there with a new vision, new confidence. So you are better able to articulate in a better way for African Guyanese people the whole question of how you organize for emancipation. One of the things I am pushing, for example, is local government. Because there are provisions in the new constitutional for the return of village councils to those villages that request them. I am advising villagers to collect signatures in a petition saying that you want back your villages. Now there is an argument by mostly Black leaders that the villages are not economically viable. I am not an economist and so therefore I…

Plain Talk: But that is not a reason for not having autonomy?

DH: Right. And I am saying no. But even if a village is not economically viable just by giving the villages back you give people a chance to chart their own destiny at the local level. And you are beginning to develop a different kind of person, a different political culture and a new form of governance from the bottom. Sure, if a village cannot undertake an economic project by itself then two villages, three villages can come together as Dr. Thomas said on a program the other night.

Plain Talk: Are you telling me that you have potential if not actual objections from African Guyanese?

DH: Yes. I had an exchange in the media with an African Guyanese leader some three years ago. I think he may have changed his mind now. You see a lot of the African Guyanese leaders do not understand villages and the social relations that exist there. They see villages as purely political units in a narrow sense. They don't understand that the villages are cultural entities with distinct social relations, so they can't see the link between that dynamic and national cohesion. They don't see how local empowerment is essential to the larger racial empowerment and to national democracy. They don't understand that an empowered Buxton or Den Amstel or Fyrish is an asset to Black self-determination. And this is not racial separatism, but recognition that Guyana is a nation-state of different sub-nations which share some characteristics but which also have their own distinct characteristics.

So I am interested in the restoration of the Village Councils both as a means of assuring people control over their affairs and deepening democracy and of dealing with the racial distribution of power. The fact that our villages are for the most part racially homogenous means that there would not be large racial minorities as is the case in the urban areas.

So I am urging African Guyanese in their communities to start to sign petitions saying they want back their village councils as a means of exercising power over where they live.

Plain Talk: In our situation, Dr. Hinds, however, we seem unable or unwilling to separate political from other forms of leadership, how can we create leaders if the PNC is seen as the embodiment of the leadership of the African Guyanese?

DH: The PNC is not going to do that kind of work. The PNC is a political party.

Plain Talk: But it likes to say it represents its constituents?

DH: Yes, but when it talks about representation it's not that kind of representation. Political parties in this part of the world are concerned with mobilizing people for elections, wining the elections and running the government. So the PNC is not going to do that kind of work. But I think that the PNC can facilitate that kind of work. For example, if I were in the PNC I would have a unit within the party that's called the Unit for African Guyanese Empowerment. Because as a political party, I don't expect it to deal with that problem. I would urge the PNC that you have enough clout at the national level that you can mount a campaign against the banks in this country so they could free up…so that Black people can get loans

Plain Talk: But you are a part of the Working People's Alliance, is that a criticism of it now and how do you justify the work you and Andaiye are doing?

DH: Well I work at different levels. I belong to a political party but I do not believe that political parties have all the answers. So I work within the political party at that level. But I also see the importance of working at the other level. I don't think political parties are going to do empowerment work.

Plain Talk: So at what level do you see the problem in the African Guyanese community as one of leadership? Where is the leadership problem? Is it at the political parties? It is at the local level?

DH: Well the leadership problem is at two levels. Those who set themselves up as leaders are not doing the kind of work they ought to do. The PNC is not doing the facilitation. I am not expecting the PPP to do a certain kind of work in Black communities. The other Black organizations, I think, have become too embroiled in the partisan struggle. I don't want to call names. Those organizations know themselves.

Plain Talk: People may not.

DH: Well, there are organizations and there are individuals. Those organizations have got caught up in the partisan struggle and they are not doing sufficient empowerment work. ACDA, for example, which I think is one of the best we have, been doing a certain kind of work. But I think ACDA like some of the others suffer from lack of human resources. I don't know, but you don't see them doing a certain kind of empowerment work in the villages. And perhaps I hope what I'm saying here will urge them in that direction. Because it is that kind of initiative that is needed. Now the leadership problem is not only at the top. It is also about creating a certain attitude to solving a certain problems at the bottom. But that attitude has to be encouraged. I want to invite ACDA and the Pan Africanist organization and the First of August Movement and individuals from the PNC and the WPA who are interested in Black empowerment to let's visit every Black village; sit down and talk with them find out what their problems are. Let us start at one end of Guyana and work our way through to the other end.. And then let us start again and have a second round of talks. And let's do this for six months. And Chris, I'm not a "see far" man, but I think we will develop out of that process a relationship …where black people will be able to understand their problems, understand their capacity to solve their problems and we'll be able to work out with them a vision for African Guyanese in this country. Now I am not a separatist, but there are problems that are germane to Indians and there're are problems that are germane to Blacks.

Plain Talk: And Amerindians

DH: And Amerindians and the other races. I think there is a conversation that has to go on in the Indian community - the Amerindians are doing that already. And I think there needs to be a conversation in the Black community and as an African I am concerned with the African community and the problems that African Guyanese have.

Plain Talk: Dr. Hinds those persons who have read you and heard you on television would associate you with the concept of power sharing. How does this mesh with what you are now saying the empowerment of African Guyanese at the community level?

DH: Well I see it as a relationship. Power sharing to me is not just sharing power at the national level. For that to work, for that to impact positively, it has to be shared by those at the top and the bottom. If you get the PNC and the PPP and whoever else to work together at the top you solve part of the problem. What you find the Africans are saying is that their representatives are not involved in making decisions about the distribution of resources. So, then it takes that pressure off the people for then go into their communities to work on the micro problems. For power sharing to begin to lead to any kind of empowerment of the Guyanese people, the executive has to begin to share power with the judicial branch and the legislative branch of government. So that it has to begin to impact on the system so that the judiciary has its own independence. So you don't have executive tyranny. We are talking about power sharing within the executive, power sharing between the executive and the legislature and power sharing between the executive and the legislature and the judicial branch. So that's at the top. Then you are talking about power sharing between the top and the bottom. Part of that power goes to the local government where people will make decisions at that level--- what I call a kind of vertical power sharing as opposed to horizontal power sharing. I am also talking about other kinds of power sharing-- between the government and the Civil Service for example; gender power sharing; sharing of power between politicians and civil society. So that you have a second house of parliament that is dominated by Civil Society. Power sharing is not just executive power sharing.

Plain Talk: We have just one minute and I am going to ask you quickly-- do you see the collapse the rebellion as positive or negative?

DH: You mean the collapse of the thing in Buxton? I understand where you are going with that question but I can't look at Buxton in isolation from everything else. As I say there is a rebellion in the Black community, but the project in Buxton is not part of that rebellion. Some people tried hard to fit the Buxton project into the larger rebellion. Remember after the 2001 election, there was a political rebellion that targeted police brutality and economic disempowerment. Although there were elements that tried to steer it in a violent direction, some of us were able to give that rebellion a progressive content that resulted in people beginning to tackle real problems.

It was at that point that the escapees and other gunmen were introduced into the village as "Freedom Fighters." These fellows had problems with the police who were shooting them down, but it was a mistake to arm them and place them in a village without the consent of the villagers. History has shown that some people who have had problems with the law could become revolutionaries, but they have to arrive at that consciousness. They do not become revolutionaries because a group of people tells them they are revolutionaries. Some operatives who also used Buxton to experiment with their "armed resistance" project used these men. It is hard to control people with guns in their hand when those people have no consciousness of the larger problem. That's why after the terror on Indians the guns and violence were turned on Blacks, on Buxton. The village has been criminalized; guns have become the favored toy and violence, mindless violence, is a staple. The village is held hostage by this violence; women and children have been raped, raped into submission, acceptance and silence. Scores of unmarked graves litter the village. Today the little teenagers who were used as messengers are the big gunmen. Yet people continue to babble about rebellion. Is criminalizing young people who rape, maim and murder at will rebellion? The violence in Buxton is not the result of poverty in the village; it is the result of an army of misguided young men that was imposed on the village.

I disagree with how the energy of the wider Black rebellion was manipulated by people who are always ready to use the misfortune of poor people to do dirty work. I don't think that the way in which those energies were channeled was right and I think I am vindicated by the fact that you've picked up guns, you have brutalized and killed Indians, you have raped and killed Africans but at the end of the day you have won nothing. But you have bands of young men operating as a law unto themselves. Is this what Black people have fought slavery, colonialism and postcolonial dictatorship for?

David Hinds lectures in Caribbean and Africana Studies at Arizona State University in the USA. He is also a political and social commentator who has written extensively on Guyana and Caribbean politics. More of his writings can be found on his GuyanaCaribbeanPolitics.com website.