Posted October 18th. 2003 - Special Feature by David Hinds

Heaven Help Guyana: Janet Jagan's insensitivity

Mrs. Janet Jagan's article in the Mirror of October 12 entitled "No Power Sharing" is yet another shocking revelation of the political mindset that keeps Guyana tethering on the brink of being a failed state. The former president apparently set out to make a case against power sharing, something that is entirely within her right and duty as a citizen. But as is usually the case with Mrs. Jagan, she ends up being most insensitive to the considerations of whole segments of the society. One is forced to ask whether this veteran of Guyanese politics deliberately ignores the well being of the entire country in pursuit of narrow partisan ends. This is hardly the time to be telling half of your population that whether they like it or not, they have to accept the will of the next half-"nothing more, nothing less."

Mrs. Jagan starts out by describing the chief critics of the winner-take-all system as being "in one way or another associated with former PNC government of the 60s, 70s, and 80s". This preoccupation with labeling all those outside of the PPP's orbit as PNC misfits is now chronic, misleading and dangerous to the fostering of a united Guyana.

Mrs. Jagan is wrong on two counts. First, almost all those persons who are opposed to the winner to take all system had nothing to do with the PNC government. This includes most of the PNC members who favor a move away from the winner take all system. And surely Mrs. Jagan could not be accusing Moses Nagamootoo and the late Dr. Cheddie Jagan as being associated with the PNC government. Mrs. Jagan either forgets or is pretending not to know that the PPP government and party include more people who were associated with the PNC government than could be found in the group proposing power sharing.

Second, Mrs. Jagan is wrong to insinuate that if one were associated with the PNC government then one should not oppose winner take all. The PNC government of the 1970s enjoyed critical support from the PPP - should we then deny the PPP the right to speak on some issues?

Mrs. Jagan attempts to educate us on where and when power sharing has worked. The less I say about that part of the letter the better, as the former President has clearly not done her homework. But she asserts, "democracy then is based on the concept of the wishes of the citizens as regular free and fair elections. Whatever the result of the will of the majority of voters then that is how governments are formed." That's it, according to Mrs. Jagan - no qualification.

Well, what Mrs. Jagan describes there is a democratic procedure, not the sum total of democracy as she would have us believe. The other part of democracy is "democratic outcome." What is the outcome of the will of the majority in Guyana? One outcome is permanent racial domination of government and state, as the will of the majority in Guyana, given the racial voting patterns, is the will of the majority East Indian population. Another related outcome is the institutional marginalization of African Guyanese, Amerindians and other minority groups. Yet another outcome, is the vulnerability of East Indians to the rage of African Guyanese which is generated by this group's sense of fear and insecurity. And the biggest outcome is the relegation of Guyana to the status of the Western hemisphere's wasteland of political instability, chaos and socio-economic deprivation.

Mrs. Jagan talks about democracy with no mention of race - not a single word. She advances a certain course by hiding behind democracy. And I do believe that former Stalinists can embrace liberal democracy. There is a danger of this article. Says Mrs. Jagan, "there is no such thing as the winner-takes-part or winner-shares-seats-to-losers." Amen! Since we know who the electoral winners are and who the losers are, do we now understand why some African Guyanese argue with much passion that there are Indian conspiracies to eliminate African Guyanese and "take all?" Mrs. Jagan is no ordinary citizen; she is a powerful member of the East Indian political leadership. I fetch no water for African Guyanese extremists or conspiracy theorists, but so long as people like Mrs. Jagan continue to write articles such as the one in question, there will always be fertile ground for such tendencies. Heaven help Guyana.

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.