National dialogue can aid reconciliation but is not enough

Dear Editor,

D. Alissa Trotz and Arif Bulkan in their carefully crafted essay on `Guyana’s political tragedy’ (SN, June 30, 2020) provide a bird’s eye view of some of the irreversible historical events leading up to the current national crisis. They walk a very fine line, and a safe one, by carefully allocating equal blame to the leadership of the two main political parties in our Guyana tragedy. There is much to be had from their essay if one is to avoid the pitfalls of allocating blame to one side of the divide and if one is genuinely seeking a starting point for a national discussion of our ethnic dilemmas with the hope of seeking viable long-term solutions. Unfortunately, as the authors acknowledge, this will be a challenging task, one that will fall squarely upon the shoulders of a younger generation of Guyanese, rather than those who are steeped in their traditional habits and institutionalized memories.

One central hindrance to the resolution of our ethnic/racial dilemma remains problematic: Ideologically, both major parties will not be operating at the same starting point – their leadership have not genuinely attempted to frontally address the race/ethnic problem, much less acknowledge that their very existence has brought us to this point of brinkmanship. There is certainly a greater willingness today to discuss the anomaly of race relations, but there is also a continual pretence among the leadership in both major parties that this issue is still a public taboo. The height of pretence is manifested in the pre-selection of a Prime Ministerial running mate who is a member of the other race as if this is sufficiently necessary to overcome this dilemma. Not only are the two main political parties operating from different ideological perspectives, but they are paying tribute to their own partisan narratives, where one group’s narrative derides that of the other. That is to say, the “pluralist” argument is supported by those who naively believe that racial/ethnic primordial sentiments simply raise their ugly heads during electoral cycles. Then there are others who support the other competing perspective, grounded in Marxist class analysis, suggesting that the narrative on race/ethnicity is a byproduct of “false consciousness”, and will eventually wither away. These opposing narratives add nothing to truth and reconciliation, and further solidifies the racial divide.

Professors Trotz and Bulkan associated the problem in Guyana with “a ridiculously bloated voters’ list, a winner takes all system, a politicized

Elections Commission and limited if any constitutional reform”. They point to the activism of the late Walter Rodney and Andaiye, both of whom laboured to transform the bi-furcated political system. But both Rodney and Andaiye would have been greatly appalled at the current level of the coalition’s bold-faced attempt at electoral rigging, a fraud far greater than what transpired under the Burnhamite/ Hoyte dictatorship. One has to seriously question how these problems can be overcome by the current political impasse, given the general lack of trust among political leaders and supporters of both sides that exorcises the need for reconciliation. The racial vitriol on social media demonstrates how much further we have walked backwards away from where we were before this election.

The authors seem to avoid the questionable pathway towards shared governance and ignored explanations of how constitutional changes can transform the heightened racial/ethnic sentiments and attitudes associated with previous electoral voting patterns. I do sanction, as the authors do, however, a call for national dialogue as a necessity to avoid returning to the same problem again. Such a national dialogue will be slow in coming because there is very little room for political maneuverings outside of the political space now occupied by the two main political parties. National dialogue and reconciliation has to be initiated by one of two sources, neither of which may contribute to long-term social cohesion: the party that controls power, or an outside regional/international force. We have at least seen elements of the latter, particularly with US/British political interference in Guyanese politics in the pre-independence period, as well as a Caricom-brokered arrangement following the violence in the post-1997 general elections. As Jason Calder of the Carter Center who observed several elections in Guyana noted “to be effective, a dialogue must be well designed, address root causes of conflicts, be widely inclusive of all stakeholders, and have credible facilitators” (Foreign Policy, March 26, 2020). Together with dialogue and constitutional change, there ought to be a radical paradigm shift that can move us closer to the notion of a federal multi-racial nationstate that distributes power to local communities outside of its centre in Georgetown (or perhaps a forward capital city located in the interior). The authors themselves make reference to an important concept which ultimately should be operationalized as a possible solution. They noted: “We need an audit of who has benefited from this polarized status quo, and those of us who are academics must begin to dispassionately collect this information to demonstrate the wealth and racial and gender inequalities that this has produced. And we must make this audit public, so that we can clearly see the few who have reaped the benefits at the expense of a divided population in post-independence Guyana.” This type of audit, when applied to an analysis of who benefits from the largesse of the state, particularly through an ethnic impact statement, will go a long way towards identifying who are the beneficiaries of government policies. This would eliminate the subjective perceptions whether political and economic patronage benefits the traditional supporters of the ruling party only, or others.

National dialogue, however, will have to wait until the next legitimate administration steps into political office.

Yours faithfully,

Baytoram Ramharack