The PPP has been commemorating the 75th anniversary of its launch on Jan 1st 1950. But, as I have stressed over the years, when looking at events in the past, we should not forget William Faulkner’s aphorism, “The past isn’t dead; it’s not even past”.
The present was created out of our past, and there are always the traces influencing us. For instance, there are complaints that Forbes Burnham’s role in the formation of the PPP is being ignored by the PPP. Whether attenuated or not, Jagan and Burnham still “live” in the memories of their followers; and, if nothing else, we have to be careful not to gratuitously offend the sensibilities of those followers.
Today we have the advantage of hindsight and access to a wider array of accounts (for example, the British and US declassified files) than those who lived through the events. We should therefore be better situated to avoid possible “illusions of retrospective determinism” – that because something happened under some circumstances, it was therefore bound to happen. Or worse yet, as we commemorate the formation of the PPP when the Opposition is attempting to coalesce to take on the PPP electorally, we do not simplistically believe that “history will repeat itself” with another Burnham.
David Hinds, presidential candidate of the WPA, for instance, has pushed the idea of a coalition in which they would mobilise the Black nationalists: under the AFC and Nigel Hughes, the Coloureds; and under the PNC and Aubrey Norton, the African segment. This parallels Burnham’s formation of the PNC in 1958, when his PNC, with urban African mass support, fused with the United Democratic Party (UDP) -– the political offshoot of the League of Coloured People — under John Carter, and with pioneering Black nationalist Eusi Kwayana, then Sydney King, who had support in rural Black communities, especially on the East Coast.
As Marx pointed out presciently, “Men make their own history, but not in circumstances of their making”. What were the circumstances of Burnham’s role in the formation of the PPP?
Cheddi Jagan had returned to Guiana in 1943 as a dentist, but he was influenced by the Marxist ideas that were circulating then in the US. He married a committed communist, and they launched a discussion group with two other progressives, Ashton Chase and Jocelyn Hubbard, which became the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) in 1946.
Burnham, who as a youth had expressed the ambition of becoming the PM of Guyana and the Caribbean, had won the 1942 Guyana Scholarship from Queen’s, stirring great pride in the African Community. The war delayed him from proceeding directly to London for further studies, which he did in 1945.
In 1947, Jagan won a seat in the legislature from the East Coast Constituency, with the assistance of Sydney King and Balram Singh Rai, and buoyed by widespread support after Jagan supported a sugar workers’ march following the killing of five sugar workers in 1948, the PAC decided the following year to morph into a political party – the PPP.
Considered the party leader because of his legislative experience, Jagan played an oversize role in determining the composition of the inchoate PPP leadership. While the leftist ideology of the PAC stressed “class interests”, he carefully curated the leadership to represent the “ethnic” interests that had been manifested with the growth of representative politics since the end of Indian indentureship in 1917.
Forbes Burnham, as a newly-minted lawyer, was recommended by Billy Strachan of the British Communist Party, a close confidante of the Jagans, and was asked to stop off in Jamaica on his return to Guiana to observe the workings of the like-minded PNP. Ashton Chase, who was African, was asked to step aside as the Chairman for Forbes Burnham, who was considered a better draw for urban African support in the upcoming elections that would be run under universal franchise. With ethnicity becoming more salient, and with Indians’ sudden numerical advantage, Burnham’s mobilization was predictable.
But the circumstances now have evolved, notably the demographics, the change from FPTP to PR; and, even then, the importance of ideological orientation to the Americans, who were already taking note.
Finally, while Aubrey Norton has served the PNC long and faithfully, he is no Burnham. The simplistic imitation of Burnham’s tactic of forging an ethnic alliance to confront the PPP is self-defeating.
If history repeats itself the second time, it is as farce.
