Since I began writing ‘Future notes’ over a decade ago, I have never advocated that the PPP or PNC should seek to govern Guyana without the other. In 2011 and 2015, I supported APNU on this basis. “Of the major parties, I am left with A Partnership for National Unity, which has adumbrated a position that comes closest to my demands. As I understand it, should APNU win office, it is ‘committed to the establishment of a Government of National Unity, which would have as its priority the …. Constitutional and institutional reforms necessary for the realisation of Shared Governance’, and the party proposes to do this ‘during the first two years of the first term of the Government of National Unity” (‘Why I support the APNU’ SN: 16/11/2011). I arrived at this position simply because global experience, a vast body of academic literature and simple common sense suggest that competitive democratic governance is impossible in a context where two large ethnic parties, exhibiting significant social estrangement, constitute some eighty percent of the population.
Professor Sammy Smooha claimed that ‘in the West, there are two main forms of democracy for managing conflicts in ethnically or nationally divided societies. The classical and predominant form is liberal democracy… [and] … the other form is consociational democracy.’ In the first, e.g. the United Kingdom, he said, ‘ the state treats all its citizens equally and makes them members of a common civic nation where the nation-state maintains and fosters a single language, culture, identity, and public education system that homogenizes, integrates, and seeks to assimilate the population. The second, e.g. Belgium and Switzerland, uses various mechanisms such as power-sharing – minority inclusion in the national power structure – proportionality – distribution of resources according to the size of the group – veto power – to avoid decisions that adversely affect vital interests of the minority, and the politics of negotiation, compromise, consensus and indecision instead of majority rule.’ According to Smooha, the alternatives are either the establishment of an ethnic democracy that curtails some of the rights of the ethnic minority or an ethnic non-democracy, i.e. an ethnic dictatorship. (https://www.researchgate.net/
The PPP and PNC are essentially ethnic parties and our history has demonstrated that given our inherent structural difficulties neither of these parties governing alone can bring peace, security and optimal development to Guyana. Of course, there always will be the misguided and self-interested who tend to support the status quo matters not what. Since acceptable democratic alternatives exists, I view it as an obligation to consistently undermine every effort to establish ethnic governance (‘an ethnic democracy that curtails some of the rights of the ethnic minority or an ethnic non-democracy, i.e. an ethnic dictatorship’) as a means of bringing political stability to Guyana.
In my presentation at the ‘ Cuffy 250 ‘Annual State of African Guyanese Forum 2022: Resisting the emerging apartheid state: economic equity and security last week, I contended that since it is not possible to legalize ethnic dominance in the Caribbean, by 2013 the Peoples’ Progressive Party (PPP) had largely been successful in practically doing so because Guyana’s ethnically bifurcated, majoritarian, winner-takes-all political arrangement allows its furtive existence (‘The furtive establishment of political dominance’ (SN:17/04,2013). The PPP has been creating the conditions wherein ‘Africans who wish to progress must join the PPP – a few have gone to the extreme and felt compelled to photograph how they voted at the elections as proof of allegiance and others have claimed that if Christ returned he will voted for the PPP!’
There is a general consensus that national unity is desirable and thus the regime has been parading its notion of ‘One Guyana’. But it is also well established that national unity cannot be attained without greater equity and balance among the social and ethnic groups in sharing the benefits of modernization and economic growth. Where there is a significant perception, as there is in the Guyanese African community, that the Indian dominated PPP’s intent is to disadvantage Africans and then herd them into the PPP, it is for the latter’s government to make every effort to counteract this view.
This principle of whose responsibility it is to respond to these kinds of concerns has been established since 1964, when in response to PPP complaints of discrimination in the public service, Forbes Burnham established an International Commission of Jurists ‘To examine the balance between the races in the security forces, the Civil Service, Government agencies or undertakings (including land settlement schemes) and other areas of Governmental responsibility; to consider whether existing procedures relating to the selection, appointment, promotion, dismissal and conditions of service of personnel are such as to encourage or lead to racial discrimination in the areas concerned; to make such recommendations as are considered necessary to correct any such procedures with a view to the elimination of imbalance based on racial discrimination having regard to the need to maintain the efficiency of the services concerned and the public interest’ (Jagan, Cheddi (2004) ‘West on Trial’ Harpy).
If over half a century ago Cheddi Jagan could have complained that the PNC did not consult him about the above terms of reference that bypassed ‘the main issue of correction of existing imbalances’, at a minimum, in the present context, this kind of inquiry will require a broadly agreed upon racial/ethnic disparity audit to establish if and where ethnic gaps exist and what policies are necessary to remove them. This approach would need to be comprehensive, dealing with wealth and income distribution, participation in the professions, education access, quality and scope, disparities in institutional treatment by the public and private sectors, etc. The audit could be designed to identify the sources of persistent racial inequality and uncover the specific structural mechanisms that create cumulative racial disadvantage across domains, time, and generations. It could help to produce a counter narrative about race that will certainly aid the development of ‘One Guyana’ by identifying better, more effective strategies for alleviating structural racial inequality. It also has the potential to spur democratic conversations about race and reconcile the perceived tensions between notions of equality and liberty in the area of race.
Establishing furtive ethnic dominance requires a profligate managerial environment that gives the PPP carte blanche to dispense state resources to bribe and cajole the population into doing its bidding. Independent or semi-independent institutions are a humbug and all important areas of social life must fall directly under the control of the regime and its supporters. The problem is that since a properly crafted racial/ethnic audit is an antithesis to furtiveness in area of race relations, it could deliver an historical expose of all of that has gone before!
It appears that once again, in this examination season, Forbes Burnham is top of his class for, given the PPP’s trajectory, as we continue to demand ethnic/racial audits, we can expect it to reject this approach and continue with the ridiculous position that requires those who claim they are suffering from state discrimination to produce the evidence!
