Wisdom in social affairs is plentiful

Posted September 19th. 2004 - by Eusi Kwayana.

Thomas Paine argued that the skill of government was very widespread among human beings. Some Guyanese will say that he has not seen the PPP/C in action. I am sure that the PPP/C has an equal share of this talent, although those without it seem to get to the top.

This short article shows that wisdom, especially in social affairs, is plentiful. It is often not recognised or given its due. The argument rests on two cases, neither of them headline cases.

In the 1930s I attended primary school in Beterverwagting. The headmaster at the time, Mr P B Cholmondeley of Essequibo had a civic sense. There was a village election for Chairman of Beterverwagting-Triumph Village Council. The Beterverwagting candidate was Mr Nestor, and the Triumph candidate was Mr Surat Singh. Ahead of the actual election, Mr Cholmondeley caused the school population to vote in a mock election. As I now reflect on it, this was a kind of election polling.

'Voters,' that is the mock election voters from both Beterverwagting and Triumph attended the school, St Mary-ye-Virgin Anglican. I do not remember who won the poll. It is possible that Mr Nestor won, since the school was located in Beterverwagting and had more Beterverwagting 'voters' than Triumph 'voters' in attendance.

The school poll drew my attention directly to local politics in the two villages. Under the Local Government Act of 1945, property owners, small and big, elected the councillors and then the councillors elected the chair of the council. If there was a tie, the candidates had to face the electorate.

As Beterverwagting was mainly African and Triumph mainly Indian in population, there was an issue over the chairmanship. The chairperson of a village council had all the powers of the council between meetings, but was bound to submit each decision made then to the next ensuing meeting of the council.

The wise heads of BV and Triumph got together and decided on a rotation of the chair. BV and Triumph by agreement would each hold the office on alternate years. So far as I know, the agreement lasted during all the years I was active in local government. It probably fell apart when the new Municipal and District Councils Act was introduced in 1969-70, abolishing the village councils.

Did it falter at any time while it lasted? Research may reveal whether it did, but I have no recollection of a violation of the convention. The point is that rural people had the wisdom to make such an arrangement to the satisfaction of both sections of a joint village.

The other case is not one of such open power-sharing between ethnic electorates locked into a single system.

The other case came to my attention in August when there was a meeting called by residents of a municipal district (ward) in San Diego in the United States. The representative, a young, very popular African-American man, Mr Lewis, had died suddenly. The district of San Diego comprised Africans, Hispanics, Asians and a minority of whites. In the past, African-Americans had been the largest single group, a place now held by the Hispanics, who use the description 'Latinos.' In this country where the percentage of each race in prison, buying hamburgers, dying of an ailment, dropping out of high school or going to college is public knowledge, these facts appear in the newspapers.

I learned at the meeting that since 1969 the African-American and the Latin organisations had reached an agreement. The Latinos would not field a candidate in District X but would help the African-Americans to win. For another district the African-American organisations would not field a candidate, but would support the candidate of the Hispanic organisaton of Latinos. The strongest Asian organisations seems to support these agreements. All declare the agreement was made to "defeat the status quo" or the exclusion of so-called minorities from the city council.

Without these agreements it would be well-nigh impossible in the opinion of San Diegans for an African-American or a Hispanic candidate to win a place in the city council. Agreements like this have fallen apart, for example in Los Angeles, under the pressure of other considerations. It is necessary to state that the agreements do not bind individuals from competing, but that the voters, when they vote, seem to follow the lead of the ethnic organisations. In San Diego by public testimony the pact has worked since 1969.

In the city mentioned, a councillor has a semi-executive opposition. The councillor has an office and a staff. The councillor manages the expenditure of the district's share of the budget, the choice and timing of programmes, and can directly approach the council, the mayor and the city manager, up to the chief executive officer in this city.

These are two cases at random in which popular instincts, common sense and social wisdom have brought about constructive solutions in the form of what we now call power-sharing, without official imposition. Where are we now?