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Dr. Randy Persaud responds to the Peeper.

By Dr. Randy Persaud - Posted July 2nd. 2006

Dear Editor,

Please allow me to respond to Peeping Tom's (PT) article - "Wicked and devious propaganda" - which appeared in KN on June 27. I consider the Peeper a thoughtful analyst and so I am concerned about his charge of my supposed "misinformed diatribe".

I want first of all to thank the Peeper for acknowledging Freddie Kissoon's neurotic practice of publishing contents of personal conversations. Kissoon's article last week on my visit to Guyana is symptomatic of how utterly shameless some influential people in Guyana have become. I met Kissoon by happenstance last February and consider him an acquaintance. I would acknowledge that he did set me up, and this despite warnings from people who truly know his character. I thank Mr. Kissoon for the tour, and I undertake to never divulge the contents of our conversation. That is my standard. Now let us move on to more important things.

Before I embark on a systematic analysis of the Peeper's invectives against me, I should note how disappointed I am that intelligent Guyanese still take cheap shots at those of us who live in the Diaspora. I want the Peeper to know three things on this score. Firstly, I have spent sixty seven days in Guyana over the past twelve months! Secondly, I have been conducting extensive research in Guyana. I have built an extensive data base on migration. Thirdly, a number of the people whom I have critiqued (Hinds, Ellis, Trotz) also live overseas.

Now let us move to the more substantive parts of the Peeper's article.

According to PT "Dr. Randy Persaud has done little in his contribution to enhance intellectual credentials." I take that to mean I have not added anything useful to the debates on Guyanese politics. Given the charge, I should reiterate the key points I have been making.

They are, inter alia, as follows: (1) The WPA's alliance with the PNC is a betrayal of Rodney's legacy, not the least because of what Rodney fought for, and the way his life ended.

(2) Unlike many people (including PT) who are baffled at this unlikely alliance, I have explained it as the outcome of Black Nationalism. The early WPA and Rodney specifically, had two intellectual pillars - viz. a historical materialist critique of oppression, and a Black Power critique of colonial and imperialist domination. I have suggested recently that the WPA has abandoned the historical materialist critique founded in class analysis, and has now openly embraced a narrow and de-historicised form of Black Nationalism. In contradistinction to Rodney's Fanonian critique of EUROPEAN cultural supremacy over non-Europeans, the WPA now intimates that Africans in Guyana are being dominated by Indians.

(3) David Hinds has been the intellectual architect of this project. More than that, Hinds has peddled the idea that the PPP is a representative of Indian interests. He has gotten away with that despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Hinds has developed the thesis that Africans and Amerindians in Guyana are marginalized politically and economically. When pressed about the thousands upon thousands of Indians who are poverty stricken or are just eeking out an existence, his answer is that Indian poverty does not negate African marginalization or disempowerment. Black Nationalism is the ideology that explains Hinds' position here. Why else does he not write about all marginalization in Guyana. Why does he never mention the composition of the Disciplined Forces, or of the Civil Service? It is this Black Nationalism that I have trying to flesh out, and for which I been accused of all sort of things.

(4) I have also been at pains to show that the alliance of the WPA with the PNC is partly the outcome of the incompetence of the WPA leadership. That incompetence has led to the systematic erosion of the support the party had in the 1980s. (I actually attended the 26th anniversary Hadfield Street event for Rodney and I saw the empty chairs.) Since the WPA no longer has support of its own, it has jumped around like a Political Kangaroo aligning itself with this, that, and the other group. Despite these antics, they have not been able to make any kind of impact. To remain relevant, the WPA decided to first pardon the PNC for past misdeeds, and then openly join it. The WPA, as I have noted before, is like an aggressive Mini-Bus Tout-Man for the PNC. Did you see Rupert Roopnarine on the platform with the PNC leader last week?

(5) I have also argued that, Power Sharing, which has been popularized by Hinds, is an extra-electoral concept in the Guyanese context. It is meant to undermine electoral democracy by suggesting that elections do not matter. It has also become the political fulcrum of Black Nationalism. Power Sharing, in and of itself, should not be dismissed. However, the manner in which it has been put on the table in Guyana is not constructive. I have openly rejected the WPA's call for Power Sharing on account of the fact that the Party has no mandate to make such a demand. I have also argued that the PNC is a real Party, but because it has no tradition of democracy, it should not be easily trusted. The PNC must have a demonstrated record of cooperation before any extra-electoral arrangement is pondered. I also think that the PNC can come to office with skillful leadership and through some form of coalition. Indians probably do not vote for the PNC for the same reasons that African Americans do not vote for the Republican Party in the United States. That does not make African Americans racists. I fully understand and endorse their position.

(6) I have also shown that while Africans have been exploited and oppressed all over the world, Indians have also been at the receiving end of such structural disadvantages. Moreover, the evidence of a solid and huge African Middle Class in Guyana disallows the racialization (i.e. Indianization) of economic advantage which Hinds is so bent on demonstrating.

(7) I have also developed a framework for analyzing the PNC/WPA political discourse. I used the work of Prof. Michel Rolph-Trouillot in building that framework. I have shown how silence is a particular kind of discursive and semiotic technology employed in the production of convenient narratives. These narratives have also facilitated what I have called Tactical Presentism.

Peeping Tom should know that these are arguments. Everyone is free to accept or reject some or all of these arguments. In large part that is what democratic discourse is about.

Now let me respond to the issue of the WPA and violence. I want the Peeper to consider the following quotations from Hinds, and my own responses to them. I also invite the Peeper to see if there is a connection among the various quotations. This is important because it is the totality of the discourse that matters. Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe have defined a discourse as the structured totality that emerges from the articulation of different instances. Put differently, when you join up Hinds' statements, his language of a "gun-solution" should not be too difficult to apprehend. Here we go:

David Hinds No 1: "In an atmosphere of racial competition and insecurity where the reins of ultimate official decision-making lies with the representatives of one race, the African economic stagnation is further aggravated" (Hinds, May 4).

Randy Persaud's Response: Hinds is clearly suggesting that state power is in Indian hands and that Africans are suffering on account of that. In actuality, there are poor and powerless people from all backgrounds all over Guyana.

David Hinds No. 2: "Nowhere has violence solved racial problems. But when the side that holds the reins of official power stubbornly continues to use formal-legal arguments to frustrate a settlement to a problem that has its genesis in racial insecurity and fear, then it is inviting the other side to reach for gun-solution" (Hinds, May 4).

Randy Persaud's Response: Hinds stops being an analyst here, and becomes an advocate because he adumbrates an intellectual defense of a gun-solution. While the PPP may indeed defend democracy on "formal-legal grounds, the main opposition party has done the exact opposite, namely, attempt to negotiate through violence on the streets.

David Hinds No. 3: "Similarly, when the official representatives of so-called Civil Society groups and the media continue to pretend that there is not an overriding racial problem or trivialize it in abstract discussions of democracy and the rule of law, they are inviting a gun-solution."

Randy Persaud's Response: Hinds racializes everything here. Democracy and the law are dismissed as almost irrelevant. The gun-solution reference here reads like a threat.

Let us move on to my June 25 KN article which so upset the Peeper. In that article, I itemized what I thought were the key points in Hinds' KN articles of June 12 and 17. I'll re-present the points I made and then show the evidence for the same. Is that fair enough Peeper?

Randy Persaud No 1: Walter Rodney had issued a call to violence against the PNC dictatorship and that call was justified on account of PNC misrule" (Persaud, June 25)

Evidence from Hinds who is actually quoting Rodney: "Few individuals want to willingly invite their own death. Yet many will be found who are prepared to fight fearlessly for their rights even if their lives are threatened. The human spirit has a remarkable capacity to rise above oppression; and only the fools who misrule Guyana can imagine that our population alone lacks such capacity" (Hinds, June 17).

Randy Persaud No. 2: "Violence is a tool of struggle because 'people have a right to self-defence when they are confronted with violence of the state' (Persaud, June 25).

Evidence from Hinds: "People have a right to self-defence when they are confronted with the violence of the state…" (Hinds, June 17).

Randy Persaud No. 3: "Violence is a means of "last resort or when all other doors to peaceful settlement are closed" (Persaud, June 25).

Evidence from Hinds: "But the move to violence must be a last resort or when all other doors to peaceful settlement are closed" (Hinds, June 17).

Randy Persaud No. 4: "Since the WPA … had called for violence against the PNC, it is now just for them to incite or at least support violence against the PPP government" (Persaud, June 25)

Evidence from Hinds: "The WPA has long urged a peaceful settlement of our problems in the form of a representative national form of governance….The PPP, the representatives of Indian Guyanese, has since 1992 turned its back on the reasonable proposal to share the power… In the final analysis it is the PPP which will determine if and when all doors to a peaceful settlement are closed, not David Hinds or Kean Gibson" (Hinds, June 17).

I have gone through this exercise to demonstrate in clear fashion that my KN article on June 25 was based on firm evidence. In summarizing Hinds' position in the said article, I actually relied on quoting Dr. Hinds. The Peeper missed that part. He, like Alissa Trotz, is in the business of providing testimonials for "David" because they "know him". The Peeper did make the point that the WPA did not actually engage in political violence against the PNC. I take his point, but insist that I never made such an argument. My comments on Rodney, the WPA, and political violence, are based entirely on the writings of Hinds himself. David Hinds' has shifted his position. He has moved from an analyst to an advocate. He has moved from a moderate, to a right-wing Black Nationalist. I invite David Hinds to tell me otherwise.

I also made the point that the WPA has twisted history by transforming its discourse of multiracialism in the past, to an Africanist discourse in the current conjuncture. My evidence for that point comes straight out of Hinds. Here is what he says -"…is it okay for Africans to urge militancy and fearlessness against the excesses of an African Government as Rodney did, but not against those of an Indian Government?" (Hinds, June 17, emphasis added). In this rendering, Rodney and the WPA are Africans. What happened to the multiracialism? In actuality, the Africanization of Rodney's militancy is the "condition of possibility", pace M. Foucault, for the legitimation of militancy (including a gun-solution) against a supposed Indian (PPP) Government. Can't you see that?

Let me make a couple more points before I close.

Firstly, I may be living out of Guyana, but I am not outside of its pains and promises. In many ways, I am sure I am more connected to huge parts of Guyana than the Georgetown middle class intelligentsia who make it to New York, Toronto, Miami, and various Caribbean resorts, more than to the villages in the country-side. The Guyanese Diaspora has made an invaluable contribution to Guyana, and I am trying to do a bit more than the obligatory school adoption or flood relief contribution. Incidentally, there were 500 homicides in the Washington D.C area where I live, so please drop the safe hamlet bit.

Secondly, no matter how long I have been away from Guyana, I still know the basic truth about the country's politics. Guyana is not in a semi-fascist condition as one columnist says it is. Enrico Corradini, Alfredo Rocco, Paolo Orano, and Giovanni Gentile would turn in their graves if they only knew what is being called semi-fascism in Guyana.

Instead of semi-fascism, Guyana is quite an open society.

There is a free press in the country. Every elections since 1992 has been verified to be free and fair. In contrast to the PNC's legacy of authoritarianism, President Bharrat Jagdeo has been pursuing policies within a framework of what I once called Responsible Pragmatism. Evidence for the latter may be gleaned from his decision to support bauxite workers in moments of financial difficulties, or from the ways in which he has reduced the massive foreign debt bequeathed to the Guyanese population by the PNC. The same may be said for the way he has handled the massive flood relief efforts. By way of contrast, take a good look at New Orleans.

There are thirty-four political parties in Guyana and they are all free to compete in the upcoming regional and national elections. While most (such as the WPA) will never get more than a few votes, it is their right to compete, and the political conditions in Guyana today allow that. Parties are forming coalitions and doing their best to garner support the democratic way. Look and the ROAR/GAP unity for example.

The society is so open that a new party, with a new message, may very well do fine at the polls. That will be bad news for those who believe that everything in Guyana is about race. I found a good number of Indians from Leonora, for instance, who said they are leaning towards the AFC. Black Nationalism has no way of explaining that. I say this because the WPA has spent the past twenty years harping on how politically backward Indians are. The message from Roopnarine (I have heard him in person) and company has been consistent and simple, namely, Indians vote irrationally for the PPP. Maybe the WPA and the PNC should go to Leonora and other PPP strongholds and try to woo some votes. This is not farfetched, because some of the people who expressed support for the AFC, have been both PPP and WPA supporters in the past. The political frontier is still open, and those who want executive power should go out and win some votes in new "political markets"

Guyana's problems are many, and our divisions are deep. At the same time, it is a country of fantastic promises. Dick Morris was correct when he noted that despite the political divisions, people of different ethnic backgrounds have strong fraternal relations.

Finally, I want to ask Peeping Tom to specifically tell me which parts of what I wrote are not supported by textual evidence. I think the Peeper needs to open up those eyes fully. Hasta Entonces.

Your Faithfully

Dr. Randy Persaud