A man who used to sup and share space with Forbes Burnham has pressed me to share a revealing but powerful private statement that repeatedly came out of the Kabaka in the times they had together. According to this Indian Guyanese, Burnham used to say that there are four main races in Guyana. There are Indians and Africans, and then there are those two races whose identities begin with the letters ‘n’ and ‘c.’ For those in the midst of pretending ignorance at this mystery, I give a helping hand, two to make doubly sure. The ‘n’ which Burnham insisted colored the outlook of exploiters was what was an inseparable part of the American vocabulary both in the pre-and post-Civil War era in the Deep South. The ‘c’ was what the British in the glorious days of Britannica and her rulership of the waves, plastered on the Chinese, and which is now the sometimes unhappy, sometimes proud, inheritance of the descendants of subcontinent Indians, on this side of the world. Political correctness has only sent both sentiments and related expressions underground.
Though I recoil from using the actual derogatory and foul descriptives, there is no question that Burnham was right on the money. Why is it I ask my fellow Guyanese that the Yanks got rid of him, and pushed his people out of the door? They concluded that they had to deal with a proud African, a Guyanese nationalist to the marrow, but a man who filled their visions with an uppity presence that is spelled with an ‘n’ as the first letter. In Cheddi Jagan, the Brits and their Anglo-Saxon cousins, the leading Cold Warriors on the other side of the pond, beheld a nationalist troublemaker, a spoiler to their grand designs, and not an Indian Guyanese one, but a man who had earned the slap down of an upstart ‘c’ in the most belligerent employment of that label slanted and planted on an entire race: a regular rickshaw walla, or a punkah walla.
The capitalists-local and foreign Jagan’s season rubbed his face into the sewer and then ran him out of town; tarred and feathered he was. Burnham went out before they knocked him over, but they were already on the move, setting the stage with their New World Order. It is the same damnable, disemboweling, distorted system. They get rich, and the poor people with birthrights, get their offending presences degraded to an ‘n’ or a ‘c’, and are left to revel in their state of perpetual poverty. They strive hard to keep the colored man right there. Look at Africa. Predict Guyana, the real one beneath the glittering numbers, buildings, and projections. It is Africa in waiting, Latin America is reborn and flourishing; the old one of gringo intervention, and capitalist war parties. This is what Guyanese have been condemned to today: those who are left to grovel to get by, and those who get some sense and fall in love with the seduction of being the white man’s harlot. Man, they must hate me, but there are those who probably hate me more than the outsiders, the exploiters, and the incoming armies of plunderers. Because I point to them.
For there are our leaders, who have made Guyana and Guyanese into door mats and sandbags: any craven foreigner, any crooked highflyer, any naked economic aggressor can walk over ordinary Guyanese, and then kick them as a parting gift. A leading banna termed it sophistication and advancement, fully believing that he is held as a starring Indian cherished by his foreign inciters and cheerleaders when all he will ever amount to in the eyes of his partners is a convenient cypher responsive to their dictates. It is the perfect example of a bowing, scraping member of the labor class that starts with a ‘c.’ Guyana has all the wealth per capita (per brain cell), and all that its sons and daughters qualify for is a rating of a ‘c’ or an ‘n.’ Another banna who bin at the top and deh rung high places has lost the regard of his people and now lives for a pat on the shiny head from those thrilled with his battles on their behalf: good boy, keep it up, boy. Leaders like these have lost all right to belong to any race, especially that of Indian, which is why the white man has that special category fuh he: another ‘c’ only too glad to do deh stink and dutty wuk. Oh, when their people tell them about this helpful hint, they are sure to boil, and the dogs let loose. They can carry on. I tarry on.
Then there are those other leaders, who also bend and jump in most (un)Burnham-like fashion to kowtow and cater to the wiles and wishes of the master race now running their rackets in Guyana. Yessir, just say the word, massa. Yuh deh in good hands, could depend on us to hold our ends of the bargains.
For their prostration, their cooperation, and their submission, Guyanese leaders [and their inner circles] who sell this country out, and betray its promise, may fool themselves that they are embraced as cherished examples of the good Black man, and the good Indian. I have news for all of them: revisit the white man’s alphabet and focus on those two most pungent and piercing of letters: one is ‘n’ and the other is ‘c.’ No matter what they deliver, or how much they trash their countrymen, this is what they are in the eyes of the people who represent mastery over them and use them to enrich themselves.
The foreigners scorn sellers of their country and their people, they have a good laff among their own about Guyanese bargaining for their own gain. No matter how high leaders may fool themselves that they rise high in the eyes of their foreign co-conspirators, they will always be a ‘c’ or an ‘n’ and from that dismissal, there is no moving.
