There is some loose Opposition talk that the PPP Government is a “dictatorship”. Rather than a theoretical answer, let us examine a dictatorship we know about: the Burnhamite dictatorship of 1968-1985. Let us take the use and consequences of violence. Violence as a political tactic was introduced into Guyanese politics during 1962-63 by the CIA/TUC/PNC/UF alliance against the PPP. Government. It quickly escalated into a racial civil war, due to the racial support-base of each political party. The PPP attempted to reciprocate in 1964, but soon learnt that the success of the tactic depended on which group controlled the coercive apparatus of the state, and it was not the PPP’s. Burnham was fond of reminding his audiences that “the PNC had brought peace to Guyana”, and that if they were removed, violence would return. The Guyanese people understood his message.
During the seventies, the House of Israel (HOI), comprised of young African Guyanese, was Burnham’s personal “goon squad”, and was used indiscriminately against Indians and other Opposition figures. In 1979, the group was provided with automatic rifles and other weapons. During the same year, a member of the HOI murdered Fr Bernard Darke in public while Darke was photographing a WPA demonstration. Rodney was assassinated in 1980. “Kick-down-the-door” bandits, some from the armed forces, preyed on the Indian population: Eusi Kwayana labelled their activities racial ‘genocide’.
Even more insidious than the direct violence was the cumulative effect of Burnham’s control. His arbitrariness, his destruction of every independent institution in the country engendered among the people, first the Indians and towards the end the Africans, a feeling of helplessness – anomie – and a belief that nothing or no one could change the situation. This “atomisation” and fatalism of the population is the goal of the totalitarian dictator. The immiseration of the population further contributed to the atomisation. As Aristotle observed, when the people have to scavenge for food all day, they have very little time or inclination to plot rebellion or revolution against the dictator. They are impelled towards individual solutions, which are the “fight, flight or submit” responses of cornered animals.
The individual who elects to fight the system is easily contained and defeated by the bureaucracy, the Police, the judiciary and other state forces arrayed against him. The conflict is not allowed to escalate to higher levels. This existential reality has forced Guyanese to opt for the other two solutions of “flight” (emigration) and “submission”. These options have provided the dictatorship with its major safety valves.
Emigration increased steadily from the early sixties, and presently there are more Guyanese out of Guyana than in. These emigrants include the majority of the middle class and intelligentsia – the groups from which most revolutionary movements have sprung. Burnham consequently never discouraged emigration although, from a developmental perspective, the country was losing most of its qualified personnel.
Submission to the system in Guyana and surviving implies acceptance of corruption as a way of life. The destruction of the economy created a corresponding ravaging of the standard of living of the bureaucratic class, the Police and every party or state official who maintained Burnham in power. Taking their cues from Burnham and his top lieutenants, who had corrupted every institution to maintain power and their ostentatious lifestyle, the lower echelons demanded ‘bribes’ from the citizenry for the performance of their legally required tasks. While Burnham railed against corruption, effective action was never taken for two reasons. Firstly, the transgressors were the same individuals who were rigging the elections, harassing the Opposition, and generally guaranteeing his control. Secondly, Burnham understood that corruption can be a substitute for violence: when the citizen offers the bribe and the official accepts, both satisfy their immediate wants; but, more importantly, the citizen tacitly accepts the status quo. The citizen boasts of having ‘lines’ -connections. Burnham reversed Lord Acton’s famous dictum: in Guyana “corruption was power, and absolute corruption was absolute power”.
If we are to examine the PPP Government of the last two years, which rational person could say it is a “dictatorship”?
