What the Founder-Leader found
Frankly Speaking...........
Old-fashioned courtesy and values, sometimes born out of real respect, direct that one doesn't speak ill of the dead. But even in a thumb-nail, nutshell summary assessment of the contribution of Forbes Burnham to this society, any genuine, emotion-free critique must take into account the lasting legacies of the Burnham blunders and excesses, alongside his unquestionable achievements and successes, themselves perhaps, products of the Burnham brilliance. To me, an eight-year-old who was taken to hear Burnham at Bourda Green in Georgetown in 1953; who believed in his policies, foresight and statesmanship up to around the early eighties when he abandoned all pretence of democratic governance, a principal question will always be: why did Mr Burnham evolve into the Benign Dictator of this Guyana kleptocracy he eventually helped to create? Was he a victim of absolute power? Or was he setting out to create a society of widespread comfort and satisfaction despite what he discovered around him and in the face of international hostility? Sometimes, I long for his more honest, dispassionate, objective former colleagues to assist me with some plausible answers or direction. In these times, however, they merely acknowledge a common, ever-present enemy - the PPP/Civic, and wish away Burnham's blunders, never daring to be true to their conscience. In this my column, I repeat my view, as one who, though unlettered, followed Burnham's Blueprint closely, understood his early but long-term objectives: LFS Burnham's achievements are matched by his social and economic wreckage! No Majeed, Ferguson or the dozen speechmakers this weekend, can gloss that over or wish it away. They who will today laud him as National Hero will enumerate his achievements. No one can take that away. Instilling national patriotic pride; cultural appreciation; the erection of infra-structure (later not maintained); free education - really a misnomer and misconception - which however provided opportunity for his own Poor; the early Guyana National Service; a presumptuous but respected foreign policy and a Feed-Clothe-and-House yourself campaign, which like Produce or Perish, ended up as mere slogans, shadow but not substance which by 1985 saw dire poverty spawned by bannings, restrictions and foreign displeasure. (I wouldn't blame Burnham for the latter failures, but I'll return to that.) Two of his early friends and colleagues, the late Cleveland Hamilton and Ashton Chase who had graciously deferred to Burnham when Cheddi Jagan invited Burnham to the PPP, have written copiously and incisively on some of the social and economic destruction wrought by their one-time leader's policies and whims. From divorce statistics to mass migration, no need to repeat them here. No need for me either to mention today, the creation and institutionalisation of electoral rigging, bureaucratic corporation, decimation of freedom of speech and press, the Genesis of debt or the "termination" of political opponents. (I'm not supposed to speak ill of the dead - even politicians.) Latter-day critics like Henry Jeffrey and Festus Brotherson can fill in the rest. But, because it affected me personally; because somehow I still regard Forbes Burnham more highly than his successors, perhaps in contradiction to my own conscience, I still wonder what made him a quiet but firm autocrat of many uniforms? Was it what he found? Discovered? Realised? That the race card he blamed on Cheddi could not help without the electoral engineering? That subtle discrimination meant nothing much if "your own" had stopped being agricultural or entrepreneurial? Or that promotion of a militaristic culture did not guarantee inner commitment or food on the table? Did Burnham find out - like Desmond Hoyte-Persaud after him - that "his own" disregarded his attempts at general upliftment and instead wrecked his facilities like the co-operative movement and his co-op bank? That even his own relatively docile people could have created a powerful parallel economy based on smuggling and contra-band. I long for the true answers from those who were closer to him. To them I say: I'll listen to your praises this weekend - it's your right - as Party die-hards and people looking for a Hero you don't now have. But don't mis-inform or mislead your youth - however illiterate, sub-literate or brilliant they are. It won't endure for long. Burnham qualifies, without question, for a prominent place in this region's history. But as a human and leader, he was as flawed as Mr Hoyte claims the last elections were. Today, exactly fourteen years after his death, be true to yourselves, my PNC friends, then attempt a balanced biography of your founder-leader. Is it not time one of you try it? The children might be watching! When the Parliament sat last Thursday to consider the GEC privatisation-related Bills, the National Assembly witnessed the longest, most-sustained display of rowdyism the highest forum in the land has ever experienced. I was tempted to congratulate both the noisemakers and the Prime Minister for his gallant persistence. But then Speaker Jagan reminded all that the nation's children might be "witnessing" the "behaviour" via television. I now relent and reflect. The children would have seen Mr Hoyte, in a pre-general council display, matching Mrs Jagan now, by scattering the nation's law books like rubbish on a floor. I expect another calypso for Mash 2000! But as the youth sees the City Council, the CIVIC's softness and the MPs conduct what will they think? Until ... 1) Further delayed: The Church As Business and Urban Guerrilla Warfare. Good letter by Ms King in Chronicle last Saturday - - on the Church. 2) Words to be used this week-end to describe LFSB: icon, great, nationalist, statesman, visionary, tremendous/significant. No problem with them when speaking only the positive. 3) Did Forbes ever allow anyone or any other Party a fair chance at being elected? 4) The GEC privatisation is a last-chance opportunity. Does the government have the GUTS to tell the whole story? 5) Is there any proof that the Hoyte administration would have "given away GEC for just $4M!? 6) For decades Georgetown's D'Urban Street defied local engineers to repair it properly. The best repairs seem in danger once more. 7) Please teach me simply, to play the three-D nightly games LOTTO company. Whoever wins? 8) Lovely appropriate music for Black Pride Maggie, on 98.1FM this past Sunday morning. Hope the messages stay!
`till next week!!
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