In his 1859 poem, “The Rubáiyát”, Omar Khayyam presciently wrote: “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, / Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit / Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, / Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.” It is our hope that on this last day of the year 2018, the People’s National Congress (PNC)-led A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition would reflect on the profound message: what has been done cannot be undone even though there may be regrets; therefore, it behoves everyone to reflect carefully before they act.
With leaders of nations, the obligation for reflection weighs even heavier since the lives of their people will be affected. Guyana is on the cusp of finally having the resources to develop our long-touted “potential” and to have our people experience the “good life”, which they have only glimpsed from afar. In the lead-up to Independence more than half a century ago, even if we concede that Mr Burnham might have accurately read the Geist of the times, his decision to break away from the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and launch his own party, which became the PNC was a critical choice.
Not only was the national independence movement split, but because of historical contingencies, so was the society along ethnic/racial lines and it has remained so ever since. But while we cannot change the past, at each moment we are offered opportunities to alter the trajectory of the future and in doing so possibly rectify some of the mistakes made in that past. After Independence, such a moment came in 1968. The PNC Government was offered an opportunity to engage in some sort of rectificatory action, but sadly rigged the 1968 elections and further exacerbated the divisions.
And this was to be repeated in 1973, 1980 and 1985 with each rigging further deepening the cleavages and plunging the country further down the economic abyss that came with the lack of unity. Guyana became an object lesson for the caution, “A house divided cannot stand”.
In 1992, another opportunity presented itself at the first “free and fair” elections in 28 years, and to his credit then PNC leader Desmond Hoyte, who was President, accepted the results, albeit with some prodding from the US President, and the PPP/C was ushered into office. The “C” or Civic represented the PPP’s effort to bridge the cleavages, but it was not accepted by the PNC, which also rejected other ameliorative initiatives such as a “Race Relations Commission” headed by the widely-respected head of the Anglican Church, Bishop Randolph George.
Another choice was presented in December 1997 after the general elections – certified by a number of international observer missions, including the Carter Center – had the PPP winning. Rather than accepting the democratic verdict, the PNC made the choice to go into the streets with violent protests in Georgetown that ended with arson and widespread mayhem. The PPP’s term of office was truncated, but the PPP won once again in 2001 after constitutional changes were passed to include the PNC in governance; the PNC once again made a choice to up the violent protests with a strategy of “slow fyaah; mo’ fyaah”.
Whether it was with the connivance of the PNC or not, their choice to deny that there were criminal bandits in Buxton who were killing dozens of putative Indian PPP supporters in surrounding villages exacerbated the cleavages into chasms. Mr Hoyte’s choice to refer to the Disciplined Forces as “kith and kin” added fuel to the fire of ethnic wariness when the ineffectualness of the latter in combating the armed threat resulted in private armed militias taking matters into their own hands and killing many suspected bandits.
The present PNC-led APNU/AFC leaders have another choice to make today in reacting to the no-confidence vote, which they initially accepted but now appear to be reneging on. We hope it will be a choice that will attempt to bridge rather than widen our cleavages.
