It is imperative for all Guyanese to rethink their political approach to Guyana’s new reality
On Sunday, January 2, 2022 Walter Rodney Groundings, (TV channel 9) I began explaining to the nation my future approach to engagement with the Indian community. The discussion, starting at the latter part of the program, ended abruptly as our time ran out. I now seek in this letter to announce the rethink of my previous position and my subsequent decision. I must state the context of my previous position on engagement with the Indian community so that readers can appreciate my new approach to this controversial matter. Mr. Ravi Dev and his party ROAR, on entering the Guyanese political landscape, revisited the issue of what is meant by “multiracial” in the context of Guyanese politics and questioned the WPA’s claim to be a multi-racial party.
For readers of the younger generation, it is important to point out the context of this intervention. It took place after the assassination of Walter Rodney, and the period when the WPA embraced conventional politics/electoral politics. WPA and Rodney had built a mass movement of Guyanese that threatened the overthrow of the dictatorship which has since been described as the “Civil Rebellion.” This period was characterized by weeks of daily mass street protests, public meetings, and political violence by the state. This successful struggle in the civil rebellion had strengthened, if not legitimized in the public perception, the WPA as a multiracial party.
In the WPA leadership at the time, and more so as elements of the old politics began to reemerge, never concluded discussions that had begun on the party’s status as a multi-racial party. When the matter was raised by Dev and began to get public traction, the WPA leadership took the tactical position of not engaging a public polemic with ROAR. Sometime after the 1997 General and Regional Elections, I wrote a letter in which I acknowledged the correctness of ROAR’s observation which was demonstrated in the way the population voted in the 1992 and 1997 elections. The WPA got less than 2% of the votes and only got into the parliament due to the support of the Indigenous communities in the hinterlands. Dev and ROAR had argued that the WPA doesn’t have sufficient reliable support in either the Indian or African communities to be an authentic representative of these communities and made it clear that the WPA can’t speak for the Indians.
After careful and painful reflection on the merits of ROAR’s position supported by Indian political behaviour and unquestionable electoral support for the PPP, I accepted the reality and took the position that African political activists in the WPA should respect the demonstrated wishes of the Indian community that the PPP is their chosen representative. I said in the abovementioned letter that I would confine my political activism to the African community. From that time to the present, I have honoured that declaration as a matter of political principle and respect for the Indian community. Given my history of working and struggling with both the African and the Indian communities, my political dis-engagement with the latter was no easy matter. Like all political actions, the outcome is not known until it occurs, and one has to be optimistic.
As I write, I cannot say with certainty that my judgement and action have been correct politically. What I am willing to say it was a genuine attempt at a political objective based on obvious political reality. In trying to come to grips with the political challenges the country faces with an oil and gas sector, and the transformative effects of this reality, which has radically changed our politics in a way we are yet to understand, it is imperative for all Guyanese to rethink our political approach to the new reality. The political arrogance and contempt for the nation demonstrated in the PPP/C government dictatorial passing of the National Resource Fund (NRF) Bill has hastened my rethink and timing of my announcement. In simple terms, all patriotic Guyanese, despite previous political positions, have a duty to make conscious efforts to develop a national consensus on the future of this oil-rich nation. This requires a new beginning, based on the conviction that our nation’s patrimony belongs to all Guyanese. I conclude by appealing to the nation that we commit to a new national engagement where one speaks for all and all for one. Where one defends all and all defends one. The struggle continues!