The war up in Europe has – not surprisingly – commandeered our conversations. And as your Eyewitness has been pointing out, why not? If nothing else, it should remind us who really matter to the movers and shakers in the world. But life goes on, and we still have our challenges to deal with, no? So it’s been just over a week since we celebrated the 52nd anniversary of us becoming a Republic. Have you, dear reader, been mulling over what that means?
Your Eyewitness has been doing his bit. After all, it had to’ve meant SOMETHING to Burnham, who not only made us a republic, but a COOPERATIVE republic in 1970!! Have you ever wondered what in the world that means? You should, since our Constitution – the Supreme Law of the land – still declares that’s what we are!! Burnham insisted that the primary characteristic of our people – African, Indian, and Amerindian-Guyanese – was that we simply oozed the “cooperative spirit”.
Now, your Eyewitness doesn’t know where he got that idea from, since whatever we did before independence was at the behest of Europeans, who used whips and chains to get their work done. They sure didn’t depend on any cooperative spirit discerned by Burnham!! It appears that Burnham might’ve really gotten the idea from Nyerere of Tanzania, who insisted the sentiment was immanent in the Tanzanian people. Since most of OUR enslaved Africans were dragged from West Africa, and Tanzania’s across the continent in East Africa, one wonders how the cooperative drive was transferred. For the Indians and Amerindians here – as far as your Eyewitness could find out – they were pretty individualistic in their work habits.
But Burnham opened up an additional can of worms when he declared we weren’t just “cooperative”, but we were “socialist” – a “cooperative Socialist Republic”. Jagan immediately looked at cooperatives from within the socialist dogmas, and, quoting the founding father Marx, declared cooperatives to be “utopian”. Can’t work!! Just spinning cobwebs! But that didn’t faze Burnham. He nationalised 80% of the businesses in the country, and ran them through “cooperative management”. Meaning that managers had to consult “Workers Councils” in addition to the unions when running the business that were now “owned and operated by the people of Guyana”. All of them were run into the ground.
The cooperative republic would also make the “small man a real man” – presumably by taking care of his economic needs – which all good socialists see as foundational. At the macro level, there was a 1972 four-year plan to “Feed, House and Clothe the Nation” through new institutions formed to organise the people.
By 1976, the people were hungry, homeless, and naked!! But Burnham’s still a hero to PNCites!
…future
The PNC had formed cooperatives to run small enterprises in all fields of national life – farming, fishing, retailing etc. They were even assisted by Co-Op Banks, Co-Op Insurance Companies, Co-Op Marketing, and so on. And they all failed!! The co-ops for the small man may or may not have been “utopian”, as Jagan claimed – not that his communist proletarian dictatorship didn’t also face the same charge and fate! – but they fared no better than the big nationalised businesses!
Some in the Leaderless Opposition are now all excited about some throwaway comments made in the latest USAID Report on our Republic. They swear that no one less than US President Joe Biden’s telling the PPP Government there MUST be “shared governance” and “shared economy”. Or else!! And they’re oh so happy about the tea leaves they’ve read!!
Never mind they’d cussed out the USA “stink and dutty” after they accused them of interning in our sovereign affairs and “installing” the PPP into Government!
Ain’t the logic of politics wonderful??
…changes
Nowadays, neither Burnham’s disciples in the PNC nor Jagan’s in the PPP will have any truck with cooperatives or socialism.
So, you’d think it’s time we remove the “co-operative socialist” tag from our Constitution?
