If he were alive, (a VERY scary thought!!) Forbes Burnham would’ve been 100 years old today!! The Kitty where he was born in 1923 was an East Coast village so Burnham wasn’t a “town boy” – and that meant something when he attended the “town schools’ like Central and Queens. He was ambitious from childhood – as related by his sister Jessie early on in her eerily prophetic pamphlet, “Beware my brother Forbes”!!
“BEWARE, I say, of “MY BROTHER FORBES.” His motto is, the personal ends of power justify ANY means use do achieve them. His Bible is The Prince by Machiavelli. And we the should he come to power will be only pawns in his endless game of self-advancement…This burning ambition, if channeled properly, could have made him one of our country’s great Statesmen-leaders. It would have, had he coupled this ambition with a genuine concern for the welfare and needs of the people, given him all he sought, in life. But along with ambition, he developed certain slickness, a sly glibness. He began even as a boy, to depend more and more on his skills with words to achieve his goals.”
His ambition would see him split the national movement that the PPP has become by 1953 – knowing fully well it could open up the latent racial divisions. He knew because he took care to attempt to recreate the diverse racial leadership Cheddi and others had assembled from 1947 while he was studying in England. But a division is a DIVISION – especially when his actions soon drove out most of the Indian leaders who’d “sided” with him. His followers have tried to pin the subsequent ethnic voting on Jagan because one competing leader – Debedin – had given this an “Indian name” – Aapan Jhaat (vote for your own). But in reality both leaders understood the dangers of division – yet Burnham created the reality for sheer personal ambition!!
There’s no question that by colonial British standards, Burnham was “bright” – he always did well on exams. But his greatest failure was his insistence on treating people as means – means to further HIS ambitions – and not as ends to be developed for themselves. He was – as the old people say – a “smart fly”: but they also pointed out that “all smart flies does end up pan cow backside”!! Unfortunately for us Guyanese, his ambition made him “tie bundle” with the colonial forces – which ensured that ultimately, he was just a puppet on strings that could always be yanked!!
From being one of the British Colonies in the Caribbean blessed with the most resources, he made our country plummet just above the poster boy of poverty – Haiti.
That’s his legacy and no amount of whitewashing can change that!!
…Carter
Interestingly, US President Jimmy Carter – who played such a critical role in rebuilding our democracy that Burnham had eviscerated – is in the news. He was born the year before Burnham we don’t have to be rocket scientists to know he’s pushing a hundred. But time has taken its toll and we’re told that after several hospitalizations, he’s decided to spend his remaining days in hospice care in his Plains Georgia home – from where as a peanut farmer he became became president!!
Carter must be remembered by Guyanese and given credit for us spared what Haiti’s presently suffering from – total anarchy, death and destruction. It was Carter who brokered the agreement for free and fair elections in 1992 with Desmond Hoyte. And when PNC supporters – egged on by PNC hardliners like Hamilton Green – attacked the Gecom headquarters when it became clear that the PNC was losing, it was Carter who made that call to President Bush.
The PNC has learnt nothing: they tried (thankfully, unsuccessfully) to repeat this in 2020!!
…and Mash
Green says Burnham proposed Feb 23 for independence – but the Brits chose May 24. Which Burnham rejected because it was Queen Victoria’s birthday. He proposed May 26 because he forgot that was the date of the Wismar Massacre??
