Monday, May 26, 2014
Independence guyanatimesgy.com
T
oday, politicians will be out in force, mouthing great phrases about “independence”. Last night, our Golden Arrowhead was raised at midnight, replicating that first time in 1966 when the Union Jack, flown over our land for a century and a half, was lowered for the final time. It was, not for the first time, a time of great expectations When “Emancipation” had come in 1834, the slaves who were freed, not unreasonably, must have shouted, “Free at last! Free at last!!” After all, their chains – legal and physical had been sundered, had they not? Queen Victoria had signed a proclamation. Cruelly, they discovered that the answer was, “Not really”. Theorists later were to distinguish between “negative” and “positive” freedoms and it would appear that that Emancipation (capitalised, even) was the negative variant, in that “constraints to freedom” were removed. As to “positive” freedom – to “be all that one could be” – that lay presumably down the road. But even Emancipation, promising the absence of constraints, was a hoax: a cruel hoax. There was, as the historian Hugh Tinker dubbed it, a new form of slavery with Portuguese, Indians and Chinese who were not only “bound” to the sugar plantations, but undermined the expectations of the freemen and women to obtain a “market” rate for their labour. The substandard wages earned by all the “natives”, combined with the underdevelopment of the colony, as the profits continued to be reinvested in the imperial metropole, stifled their humanity. And so the dream of “independence” was born. Out of the struggle for better working conditions, it dawned on the leaders that until they had political power in their
own hands, they would be unable to extend their freedom to its positive dimensions. The British had to go. The British, however, had determined that even after passage through their vaunted educational system, those leaders were not ready for full independence: there would have to be a period of “tutelage”. There would be the notion of “internal self-government” in which there would be a Premier and his Cabinet appointed from the winner of the first universal franchise general elections in 1953. External relations were to remain with the Governor, acting on behalf of the Crown. But the PPP Government’s ouster within a mere 133 days, indicated that the parameters of both negative and positive freedoms were still tightly demarcated. They could only be what the Imperial power wanted them to be. The democratically elected government was deemed too radical: they foolishly assumed that the lot of the people were to be improved quickly. And so we had a period of “marking time” during which the British and the US, sniffing the wind in their self-declared “Cold War”, plotted to ensure that whenever “independence” came to Guyana, their interests – strategic, trade and investments, ideological etc – would be protected. And they manoeuvred a fractured independence movement that fell on opposite sides of the ideological divide, but more germanely for our development, divided the nation into ethnic enclaves. So while the two leaders, Burnham and Jagan might have hugged on the stroke of midnight May 26, 1966, the gesture simply emphasised “what might have been”. Guyana might have been declared “formally” indepen-
dent, but, because, at best, it was simply trying to increase the positive freedom for its peoples, the effort was doomed from the beginning because it was secondary to the interests of the Great Powers. It was only when there might be a happy coincidence of interests would the lot of Guyanese be improved. So we have had each of the two major parties at the helm of the country since independence: the first, PNC for 26 years and the other. the incumbent PPP for the remaining 22 years. We, therefore, have some basis for comparison, and while there are many who would echo Hamlet’s Mercurito and say “A plague on both houses!” perchance, we may also learn something about real “independence” if we undergo the exercise. It would be foolish to assert that either the PNC or the PPP were, or are, not motivated to develop Guyana. So the question that has to be asked is: with all the best intentions why we are still so far behind all our neighbours by almost every measure? While, we can be certain there can be no one “smoking gun”, we have to accept that the triumph of politics – the capture and retention of political power – over every other goal, is at the base of of our anaemic condition. As we commemorate the 48th anniversary of our independence, we must reflect that if our political culture stands between the Guyanese people's increased positive freedom, then it only stands to reason that we have to change that political culture. This will call for bold thinking and even bolder political will – qualities that most politicians are not seized of, in abundance. Ultimately, the people, in whom sovereignty is lodged, will have to make the choice.