At the time of his passing, many of us tried to birth feeling into words to explain the irreparable loss of our friend and comrade. Today several years later, as we sit to think and perhaps to write about Cheddi Jagan, there is still sadness that would creep up inside of us like a stillness of the hallows of an empty cathedral.

It is still difficult to remember Cheddi Jagan for all that he was, and not remain passionate to his memory. In the poem ‘Epitaph’, I wrote;

Born are we to die,
And in that span between birth and death,
We must fill this gap
With a monument of achievements,
By which to be remembered

Symbolically March the month chosen to honor his memory, is the month of his birth and his death. The diverse activities that will celebrate the life of this great man, in the various communities of our country are testimonies to Cheddi Jagan’s rich legacy.

His monuments of achievements are not only the physical and palpable changes that he brought to this country, but the indomitable spirit that he cultivated in his people, which is why different people would describe him differently. He was the workers champion, the freedom fighter, the writer, and the internationalist. These diverse nouns, independent of each other only describe one aspect of Cheddi. To create the true picture we must like an artist paint unto a single canvass the various colors, and then step back and admire this masterpiece.

Cheddi Jagan was indeed a masterpiece, an exemplar, a model, a teacher and an excellent leader. In a tribute the Director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Mr. Larry Birns wrote, “The death of Cheddi Jagan is not just a grievous personal loss to myself and colleagues. It also will leave particularly a void in the ranks of world-class leadership among the English speaking CARICOM nations, as well as the rest of the hemisphere. In the category of Latin American presidents, he was an indisputable giant among pigmies. In fact his presidency was guided by pragmatism, melded with humanness, and helped preserve a vital germ plasma for future flowering of a uniquely Latin American form of government aimed at serving all its population - not a small minority of well to do. Perhaps, the single most noteworthy aspect of his personality was that he was free of any meanness or narrowness of vision.”

In 1999, well known Caribbean journalist Earl Bousquet said he was ”a visionary, whether at home or abroad. And that he was considered by many the world over to be a man ahead of his time”. And indeed he must have been, because six years after his passing from this dynamic world, his ideas refuse to be made redundant.

Cheddi as Earl puts it was always “the consummate teacher, he always provided the historical and other data to support his analyses and conclusions”.

Tim Hector a regional politician recollects, “the painstaking analysis of American policy starting from the Marshall Plan, the Good Neighbor Policy, the Alliance for progress down to Caribbean Basin Initiative and up to NAFTA, with reference to large policy and minor detail”.

Dr Jagan was indeed an educator; he was able to break down the complexities of the modern world to simple language for the grassroots supporters to understand. In the early days it was not unusual for him to make bar charts and graphs to graphically represent some complicated problem that was contained in the budget. The charts were then used as teaching aids to explain the concepts. No bottom house or street corner was exempted, if there were a few comrades to meet and to discuss these issues. Some of the comrades that work with him can testify, how he had them holding teaching aids while he explained the issue at hand.

This was the Jagan that we grew up to know, always practical, always pragmatic and as much as he would teach, he was always willing to listen and help the ordinary people find solutions to their problems.

I would imagine that for anyone to amass the broad spectrum of knowledge that Cheddi had certainly had to be an avid reader and a profound thinker. In an article by Cde. Janet Jagan, titled ‘Cheddi Jagan - the years 1943 to 1948’ she wrote, “Also emerging as his character was further developing, was an aspect of what was to become a life-long love and commitment - studying, reading and writing. He read extensively. He enjoyed reading and then discussing, arguing, persuading and the general cut and thrust of debate with friends and opponents alike”.

Teaching was important to develop the party cadres, and to depend upon mass education was not enough. It meant that more leaders had to be groomed who understood the tenets, the objectives and the ideology of the party. For this to happen a party school was established and was named Accrabre after one of the leaders of the 1763 Slave Rebellion. Soon the enrollment to the school was higher than what they could accommodate and a correspondence course was developed. This allowed the party to educate larger and larger percentages of the population about their conditions and how to organize and mobilize for their rights.

To complement the education work, study circles were established in all the villages. These were small groups that met regularly to discuss ideas and concepts that the party leadership had identified. At these discussions party leaders would make time to be present to guide the discussions or to clarify issues.

This kind of work was further complemented with the various publications from the PAC Bulletin, to the analytical political magazine ‘Thunder’, to the daily ‘Mirror’ and the numerous articles that was written by Dr Jagan and others. Pamphlets, booklets and books were published and effectively used to educate and awaken the people’s collective conscience. Among the books that he published were ‘Forbidden Freedom’, ‘The West on Trial’, ‘The Caribbean Revolution’, ‘The Caribbean - Whose backyard’ and ‘Selected Speeches 1992 - 1994’. It was a battle of ideas for the hearts and minds of the people. Dr Jagan for his persistent effort was able to school most of his contemporaries both nationally and regionally in political activism.

That is why those of us who entertain ambitions in the realm of historic greatness must take a pause to examine this paragon and ask ourselves why the people of this country have given him the title “Father of the Nation”.

Such an accolade is not a propagandist coup, but a people’s recognition of his steadfast contributions and a simple way to express heartfelt thanks. When Cheddi died, the day was black with mourning; the Guyana diversity was unified in their loss. People sought each other, to comfort and console and the colors became blurred not by tears, but because deep down in our hearts we somehow felt a personal loss.

The personal loss, that despair was felt because an institution that went public in the mid-1940s was suddenly gone.

The dentist that became an educator/activist to propagate ideas to stimulate his people to dare to think outside the confinement of colonial shackles and dream of freedom was gone.

Cheddi Jagan did not only educate his people politically but also set out to ensure that they had access to primary, secondary, and tertiary education. In 1963 he established the University of Guyana, as evening classes at Queen’s College. His detractors then were totally against it and made many disparaging remarks about the university. It was then dubbed as “Jagan Nite School”. Today the University of Guyana is 40 years old and has expanded to Berbice, the birthplace of Dr Jagan and is able to afford many Guyanese an opportunity to access tertiary education.

In the month of celebrating the life of Dr. Jagan let us look back and articulate a vision for our party and our country. As Jonathan Swift puts it, “vision is the art of seeing things invisible”. We as leaders must be able to create, embody and communicate our vision. We must provide the context, give the purpose and establish the meaning. This is what would inspire people to mobilize, to act and to move as a united organization and ultimately as a united country. Vision is the fabric that must clothe us with our common identity.

This lesson from Dr. Jagan must not be lost, we must continue to advocate the vision, and must continually advocate that the future can be better than the past. We must restore that luxury to hope, that luxury to dream of better life in our country.

A good example of this is Dr Cheddi Jagan’s New Global Human Order; this concept is still not outdated. Inherent in this concept is recognition of the predicament of the socioeconomic conditions in the world and in particularly the developing countries.

Where the gaps between the haves and the have-not have been increasing. It would seem that the prescriptions by many of the Multilateral Financial Institutions have not been working and indeed in some cases many of the countries that have followed the rigid recommendations of the structural adjustment programs have not eradicated poverty but in some cases have exacerbated poverty.

Let there be no doubt, that these indomitable ideas that struggle to bring relief the human condition from suffering would forever beckon like an eternal flame, lighting a path to the future.

As Etienne de Grellet, once said
I shall pass through this world but once,
Any good therefore,
That I can do,
Or any kindness that I can show to any human being,
Let’s do it now, let me not defer or neglect it,
For I shall not pass this way again.