My current sojourn overseas, and being in-flight on the evening of Oct 12 curtailed my participation in the Home-Going activities for Robert Herman Orlando Corbin, CCH. However, virtual access availed me with the opportunity to listen to the Tributes of Ravi Dev and Bharrat Jagdeo, inter- alia, both of whom eulogised him for his patriotism, and commitment to Guyana’s development, especially in the political sphere and inclusive governance, in particular.
What they factually related cannot be contradicted and indeed are worthy and eminent attributions to Corbin the politician, who occupied critical leadership positions in the PNC/PNCR, and on the national landscape.
However, their context, historiography, and articulation of Corbin`s peers’ responses to his ideas reflect a jaundiced, prejudicial and self-serving view of Guyanese politics.
Dev sought to suggest that Corbin`s progressive politics was handicapped, if not interred, by a group referred to as Team Alexander. This is a patent misrepresentation of occurrences in the PNCR, if not a mischievous representation. Team Alexander existed for a short period after the 2006 regional and general elections into the 2007 biennial congress and never engaged Corbin in contestation about Shared-Governance. That team ceased to exist after the 2007 Congress when most of its members refused to renew their membership of the Party.
Team Alexander`s call was for a new Political Culture for the Party’s salvation and the creation of a new national ethos. Shared-Governance, as Dev rightly contended, was called for by most of the Team Alexander members long before such a team existed. Shared-Governance was an idea previously referred to by Hoyte as “nebulous” and “protean” before he himself subsequently proclaimed that its time had come.
As for Jagdeo, his call for a new approach to politics, which he associated Corbin, is quite ironical. When the PNC was pushing for Shared-Governance, the PPP/C convened at State House to proclaim that there would be no such project since there was the prerequisite need for the building of Trust, exactly the enterprise that Corbin had embraced, when he engaged the PPP.
It was the PPP’s reaction then, and in the persons of the President and the Prime Minister now, which have failed to respond to the call of civil society organisations and IDPADA-G in particular for engagements in pursuit of finding common ground. Finding common ground requires reaching-out to others, and the lowering the venomous propaganda, which Jagdeo sought to contend is par-for-the-course in politics. His par-for-the-course and a new approach seem quite antithetical.
Corbin’s passing has provided a moment for reflection. All have reflected on, and complimented him for, his believes and praxis. All are challenged to exhibit their sincerity to their own words. That would be the greatest Tribute to, and commemoration of, Corbin.
Vice President Jagdeo and General Secretary of the PPP is well poised to initiate what he touted at the Wake in honour of the former Leader of the PNC/R, Robert Orlando Corbin.
The creation of the environment for Corbin’s Soul to Rest in Peace is in our hands.
Vincent Alexander
Former Vice-Chair, PNCR
Immediate Past Chair, Forbes Burnham Foundation
Chair, International Decade for the People of African Descent
