Can we agree on Guyana’s history?

Dear Editor, The prejudiced, deeply polarized politics of Guyana has its genesis in our country’s political history, starting from the time the PPP was split in 1955 and resulting in the creation of the PNC. Some say it began much earlier, since the colonial era.

I have said it before and am obliged to repeat it again without fear of contradiction, the PPP is the mother of all political parties in Guyana.

Consequent upon their establishment each political party, based on the politics of expediency and opportunism, formulated their own version of our country’s pre and post-independence political history. But fundamentally, whatever the version, it was premised on either the PPP or the PNC’s version, having regard to the general view that these two political parties hold the key to unlocking the true story of our country’s contemporary political history.

Regrettably, each version of that history is coloured with racial, class and ideological underpinnings reflective of the ethnic and class composition of each party’s following. Again, that phenomenon has its history in the split in the national movement in 1955. That split, and all subsequent political events that flowed therefrom, cannot be successfully explained by any politician to the constituents on either side of the political divide. Nor will such explanations be easily accepted. Moreover, it would not be unreasonable to agree that an independent attempt to interpret our country’s political history would be viewed with suspicion by the followers on either side of that very political divide. The question is where do we go from here?

The fatalistic approach is certainly not an option. Are we to accept it and live with it? Some have argued to the contrary, ie, that the dialectical approach coupled with the politics of persuasion, mutual respect, trust and above all, confidence in the people taken collectively, can be utilized to address this historical conundrum.

Nor should this problem be viewed as an abstract phenomenon. On the contrary, the problem manifests itself in the day-today politics and economics of our country, in the multi-cultural nature of our society as well as in the institutions of state and government.

One example will suffice. For years now, there is not a single commonly utilized textbook that can be found in our educational institutions, that chronicles in an objective, truthful and unbiased manner our country’s contemporary political history and that has the blessings of all, in the same way as we all have for our national anthem, our patriotic songs, our national flag, our national pledge and the prayers which the representatives of the people bow to in the National Assembly.

On these matters there is absolutely no controversy, yet they represent and unite us notwithstanding the absence of that one particular undocumented aspect of our national DNA that has eluded us over the years.

In the circumstances, the challenge is to name the Guyanese historians and scholars who can sit around a table or even communicate as a group, through social media, to formulate, at a minimum, the contours of our country’s political history that capture especially and holistically, the pre and post-1955 era.

The challenge can be exemplified in just two hypothetical examples: take away the official garb and political physiology from Mr David Granger and Dr James Rose, two historians, two Africans, two representatives of the urban middle class; put both of them in a room with the task of formulating either the terms of reference for a larger group or to draw up a framework or an outline of our country’s history. Can they do it?

Take another hypothetical scenario: put Dr James Rose, Sister Mary Noel Menezes and Dr Prem Misir, one African, one Portuguese, one Indian, two historians, three intellectuals, three academics in a room, tasked with the same assignment. Can they do it? Yours faithfully, Clement J Rohee