By GHK Lall
I waited for the dust to lighten before venturing my two tiny coppers on a man alternately hailed and scorned. Though I left in the earlier years of his reign, glorious to some, harrowing to others, there is still enough in my bank to share some reflections.
LFS Burnham, love him or hate him, was Guyanese through and through; of the flesh, the compulsions that accompany such. On the bright side, some of his monuments stand decades later. The Linden Highway, Demerara Bridge, NIS, and masses of Guyanese who still worship the ground on which he walked. May I say free education? His good works testify beyond time. So, have other handiworks, which provoke tremendous agitation in many three-score years later.
I liked some of his scintillating skills: the craftsmanship of his oratorical gifts. There was his commanding presence that brooked no resistance, made many eat out of his hands. As a stripling, I recall some who made noises being reduced to chowmein. He did roll a few around, knock a few more back, left some seeds scattered about, and an overall reputation for living larger than life. In aggregate, this represents a thin sketch-only the first ones-in the canvas of his record and passing; it is a canvas-a checkered one, indeed-that is broad and deep, and painted in hues many times sparkling, oftentimes grim.
On this other grim, dark side, as a lowly, greener than green public servant, I watched who went, and who came. It was ugly, and the scars remain raw in those still living, those who cannot bring themselves to forget. Like Lucifer, the mere mention of the Burnham name stirs awe and fear and passion, even to this day. As a newcomer at the old Atkinson Field, I observed the planeloads of almost one kind of Guyana’s sons and daughters wipe the dust off their feet from this land made barren and coldly inhospitable for them. It staggers me that a man of the brilliance of Forbes Burnham could not let his gleaming light shine into the broad and brutal alleys of Guyanese life-from farming to public service to private sector-and raise a hand, like a traffic cop, and bring everything to a dead stop. In other words, he could have reversed the trend of racial anguish, which has not stopped to this day, except that it is now more profuse, despite nuances, camouflages. In a polity as diverse, sharply edged, as ours, I would not want to be the author, orchestrator, power over any such abomination. It is the standard by which I viewed then, and continue to examine, the richly textured legacy of this enigma by the name of Forbes Burnham.
Whenever his many good and grand works are totally compiled, there will always be that palpable, pungent, and poignant blot against his name. Because of the bigness of Burnham, it is a blot that has mutated into a smear of oceanic proportions. All are swamped by that history, the record, that dogs the whisper of his name, the love-hate nature of his memory.
I regret having to proceed as I do, but I must in the interests of fairness, frankness, and what is right. There is no middle class today of merit, that testifies to a people with caliber and prowess. I lay that at Burnham’s feet. I read of gold smuggling and money laundering woes faced by this country, and those are not poor people crimes. What we have is the power of unlimited money, and the politics and leadership that boost such that passes for a surrogate Guyanese class of standing. To its bones, in its blood, what we live with today is a largely replacement criminal class. Some of Burnham’s own sons and daughters are intimately incorporated into that milieu. What we have is a despairing impoverished class of both his own people, and those many others neglected some more, and worse. This palpable, unerring, debilitating strain in Guyanese life, I lay on his head in those forced out (teachers, public servants, businesspeople, professionals), and the mostly rot left behind. He didn’t have as many resources to play around with, but his cleverness launched the culture that has now surpassed his own accumulated volumes of foibles and failings. I point to some of those who have followed in his footsteps at the summits. We either learn to face the full painfulness of the many raw and barbaric truths of Guyana; or we disfigure ourselves in the lies we perpetuate. Both of the man, and the men we have today.
Where Burnham was cagey, what we have today is nothing short of the pathologically dirty, the thick darkness. Pervasive criminality is the defining characteristic at leadership and governance levels. Chainsaws and draglines are needed to clear the human detritus corruption. As is the norm in life’s pathways-science, sports, or cultural symphonies-there are those students, who make for better practitioners of their preceding masters. I point to Burnham, and I invite one PPP defender, one PNC advocate, to disagree that what we have today is not incomparably worse than a political leader once declared to be the worst of the worst. Today, Burnham, as he is remembered (depending on who is polled), cannot hold a candle to the present crop of comrades breathing Guyana’s air. Their shadows foul, thoughts of them leave an inerasable sense of taint.
When leaders with great gifts fail to flourish to the fullest, tragedy inevitably follows. He failed, and this country has failed because of his avoidance of the high ground, the great works that beckoned. We are the richest people in the world, but that is completely countermanded today by the worst leaders to be found anywhere in the constellations of political crime. We should be at peace, but are not. We keep toiling. May Forbes Burnham rest. Burnham’s 100th years was celebrated and cursed a few days. A hundred years from today, it will be the same. None is all bad, none all good.
