I am 26 years old, and until last week, I had never heard the voice of Forbes Burnham.
My grandmother spoke of him with a certain tone, respectful, fond, almost reverent. She called him brilliant. But I grew up in a different Guyana, one where a vicious, racist narrative was allowed to form around his legacy, largely undefended by the Black community. Whether out of fear, ignorance, or political ambition, the silence left a vacuum. It created an entire generation like me, unmoored, with little knowledge of our African history, little use for the speeches of Black leadership, and no connection to the intellectual legacy of our ancestors. We were left to sway in the wind, believing the corrosive lie that our only path to success was to ‘lick the bums’ of PPP leadership, stay silent about evils like the extrajudicial killings and the Mocha destruction, keep our heads low, maybe wear a red shirt, and hope everything would be okay.
My awakening came by chance. As a contributing writer for Village Voice, I noted their new radio station and saw they had uploaded Burnham’s speeches. Naturally intellectually curious, I finally decided to hear the man in his own words. I planned a mere five-minute listen; we Gen Z have notoriously short attention spans.
I pressed play. Then, I couldn’t stop.
Before I knew it, I had donned headphones and was listening in my car, turning errands into history lessons. I listened while I worked out at the gym, his words pacing my steps. What began as five minutes stretched into two straight, captivated hours. And then I returned and listened again.
My reaction was pure, unadulterated shock.
What I heard was a brilliant, witty, and fiercely eloquent man who clearly loved his country. He spoke of wanting better for his people and of no longer living under the boot of foreign interests. I heard him pay profound tribute to Caribbean ‘slaves,’ articulate a firm stance on the Venezuelan intrusion, and condemn the evils of slavery and indentureship. I listened to him at the opening of the Demerara Harbour Bridge, delivering a constant message of self-empowerment and the critical importance of all races in Guyana.
I sat in my car, stunned, and wondered; Why was this kept from us?
I know the stories of dictatorship. I also know the historical choice presented was between Burnham’s socialism and Cheddi Jagan’s communism and as far as I know, communists also endorsed the ‘president for life’ structure. Given that binary, of Burnham for life or Cheddi for life, I’m okay with endorsing Burnham for life. I have heard the haunting stories of the killing of Father Darke and Walter Rodney, and I often wonder why those cases have never been solved especially when one suspect even became a minister for the PPP party. History is confusing because it is meant to be.
But my lived reality is clear. It is the ugly racism and abuse by the PPP. It is the murders of more than 400 Black youths in extrajudicial killings, the imprisonment of Mark Benschop, and the unsolved murders of Minister Sawh, Courtney Crum-Ewing, and Ronald Waddell; all atrocities laid at the feet of the PPP.
Since that first listen, I have returned to those speeches. I have replayed them, each time coming away more empowered, more motivated, more informed. The picture is becoming devastatingly clear about why Burnham’s legacy had to be tarnished and buried.
They silenced his voice because his message of confidence, historical awareness, and unapologetic self-reliance is the antidote to the subservience they demand. A people who know their strength, who remember their leaders spoke of sovereignty and unity, are harder to control. They orphaned us from this part of ourselves to make us supplicants.
I am 26. I have now heard Forbes Burnham. And I am no longer swaying in the wind. I am rooted. And that, I now understand, is exactly what they have always feared.
