Events unfolding in Britain as they implement their “Brexit” decision, have highlighted a fundamental difference between their structure of Government and ours – notwithstanding that we claim to be following in their “Parliamentary Tradition”. This difference lies in the locus of “sovereignty”, which is the ultimate authority over the state, which gradually was extended from the person of the monarch or “sovereign”, from medieval times. In Britain, sovereignty was left as residing in their Parliament, composed of the monarch and the representatives of the people.
Thus it was, even though the British people voted in a referendum to exit the EU, their Parliament must now vote to ratify – or deny – this move. The US, however, in its Constitution declares sovereignty to reside ultimately in its people. Our Constitution was crafted to reflect this latter principle rather than the British.
Possibly because America had fought a war to secure their independence from the British Monarch at a time when their Parliament was still struggling to pry authority from him, Americans have cultivated a national narrative that stresses the “power of the people” at the collective and individual levels. As such, Americans are very alert to the overreach of those in public office. In Guyana, however, independence was conferred to a People’s National Congress Government that was authoritarian to its core and simply used the Constitution and other laws as fig leaves for its dictatorship. Guyanese have never been socialised to view themselves at the repository of sovereignty.
As such, even though Guyanese trek to the polls to elect their leaders, as soon as these individuals enter office – at all levels of government – they assume the outlook of the monarchs of yore: they have absolute power over their “subjects”. Those in Central Government can, for instance, award themselves whatever salaries and benefits necessary to live pampered lives while telling ordinary persons there is nothing for them in the treasury.
At the municipal level, we can have elected officials in Georgetown refusing to follow the laws that govern their office and award billion-dollar contracts without public bidding and then refusing to make the details of the contract available to the full City Council, much less the citizens of Georgetown. And this pattern of high-handed officials flow though all institutions of Government and also the State.
Citizens requiring services to the central, regional or local bureaucracy must present themselves as supplicants for personal favours rather than getting from “public servants” – as they are ironically described – services that are their right. The Police continues their arbitrary and peremptory stops, even though they have been publicly informed that this practice is illegal. And this is but the most minor quotidian indignity those in whom “sovereignty” supposedly resides, have to suffer.
But why has the US been able to foster a civic culture that privileges the rights of citizens over the powers of government? There is, first of all, the “national narrative” encapsulating this perspective that is purveyed and reinforced in schools, books, movies, TV, and other socialisation institutions. This narrative is based on the “social contract” between the governors and the governed on which the constitutional order rests: to wit that citizens have the duty to protest any infringement of their rights since in so doing, the Government would have broken the contract.
The protest can be legal. There are various bodies, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), that are willing to litigate official overreach in the courts, at no cost to the violated citizen. The protests can also be in the form of direct citizen action – marches, sit-ins and petitions etc – to bring to the attention of the officials, the disagreement of the citizenry of their actions and policies. In American today, we see all these avenues being utilised to articulate citizens’ disapproval of some actions of their administration.
An old Guyanese folk proverb says, “A hint to Beneba mek Quashie tek notice.”
