The ROAR of Ravi Dev

Ronald Waddell

2006-02-05T20:07:00.000-05:00

by Ravi Dev

(The following speech was delivered at Brickdam Cathedral during the funeral service for Ronald Waddell)

Most of you must be surprised that I am speaking to you on this occasion. I myself was a bit surprised when Bonita asked me to do so – but only momentarily. Knowing Bonita, I realised that she was doing so in a quest for reconciliation and healing for our country – a goal she has pursued her entire life; often at tremendous sacrifice. I speak to you today, also in that spirit.

I want to state right up front that no one should have their life snuffed out in the brutal manner that has become the norm today in Guyana ; not Ronald Waddell nor anyone else. We must condemn in the strongest possible terms the recourse to violence to solve any dispute.

I first met Ronald Waddell in the mid nineties when he was at the Stabroek News. A few years earlier, I had written a series of articles that Stabroek had published on the Gramscian concept of “hegemony” as a tool of oppression by the colonial masters and other ruling classes through conquest of the minds of the downtrodden. Ronald was taken by my observation that in the Caribbean, the Rastafarians, on their own, had identified the hegemony here as “ Babylon ” and had created what Gramsci called a “counter hegemony” to deal with the debilitations of the colonial and post-colonial hegemony. Ronald Waddell, in his own life and praxis, sought to overcome that most insidious form of slavery by accepting the worldview of the Rastafari.

At the time I had been working with Hindu youths to deal with some of the effects of the hegemony on them and Ronald went with me to several discussions, encounters and events amongst Indians. I remember his presence at a conference on “Suicide in the Indian Community” at the Cove and John Ashram in 1996 or so. I discovered that Ronald Waddell was a warm, caring and very intelligent individual deeply concerned about the problems of Guyana . His focus on the African community was simply a recognition that liberation, like charity, has to begin at home.

As a regular contributor to the letter pages of the newspapers then, I mentioned in one contribution the negative role played by the Mulatto/Coloured class in the imposition and maintenance of the hegemony among Africans in Guyana . Professor Clive Thomas and Andaie upbraided me in a published response for using a particular phrase; asserting that it had a “touch of odium” in regards to African Guyanese. Ronald Waddell took them to task not only to assert that they had misinterpreted me, but for what he thought was their own intemperate use of language.

Ronald and I continued to have discussions on politics and society during the next few years, especially after the riots of January 12, 1998. I appeared on several of his programmes, “University on 9”. I witnessed his increasing despair at what he saw as the marginalisation of the African Guyanese from the levers of effective power in Guyana and more immediately, the widespread killing of young African males. His move from the WPA (position, since he was not a member) to the PNC as a candidate during the 2001 elections was in a sense an acceptance of realpolitik: he concluded that the PNC would obtain an overwhelming majority of the African vote and saw no benefit in fragmenting that vote. His vote could count, he hoped.

The result of the 2001 election was very traumatic for Ronald: he concluded that Indians would not switch their votes from the PPP even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the PPP was not even addressing their concerns, much less the concerns of Africans. In one of our conversations, I pointed out that in very similar circumstances (1992) Africans had acted in an identical fashion: it didn't cut any ice with Ronald. We drifted apart from that stage and it was impossible for me to reconcile Ronald's new politics with the person I knew.

I believe that Ronald's drift from the politics of ballots to the politics of bullets represents a failure of our political system to deliver equality and justice to African Guyanese. From the beginning of my involvement with politics in Guyana , I had pointed out this failure but also that the system ultimately also failed Indians, Amerindians and all other Guyanese. Ronald was not convinced about the dilemma of Indians– especially after 2001. He moved from blaming the system to blaming the people. The result, they say, is history.

I met Ronald for what was to be the last time when we bumped into each other at the “Groundings for Walter Rodney at Queens College” last year. I stated my vehement disagreement with the course he had chosen to rectify the wrongs he identified, some of which I accepted, caused by our political system. He said that he understood why I had to take the position about the pain of Indians but inquired as to who mourned the pain to Africans?

I believe that whatever our political convictions, whatever we may think about the politics of Ronald, we as Guyanese – regardless of which subset we choose to define ourselves – have to accept that we must revisit our political system to ensure that it delivers what John Rawls defines as the prime requisite for any social institution: JUSTICE. Or we can be assured of creating other Waddells – sensitive and caring men and women driven to nihilism in frustration at the manifest injustices around us.

In pursuit of that goal, however, let us heed the call of Bonita Harris, the widow of Ronald, for us to reject violence in all its manifestations, not only in politics but within all our relationships. It has been said that the old policy of “an eye for an eye” will leave us all blind in the end. Let us remember the Ronald of old and work towards addressing our disagreements and problems in a peaceful manner, so that no other Guyanese, or their families, will be left blind. As the hymn reminded us, all of us have been dragged to this Babylon , and we all have reason to weep as we remember our Zions. Let us reject violence as we strive to recreate a new Zion for all of us. My sincere condolences to Bonita and all the members of the family of Ronald Waddell. God Bless Guyana .

Democracy and power sharing

2006-01-29T20:04:00.000-05:00

By Ravi Dev

ACDA has created quite a firestorm with its full-page ad in KN calling for a boycott of the upcoming elections unless the rules for forming the Government of Guyana are amended to include the representatives of African Guyanese. It appears to us that ACDA is deploying the “boycott” call to force the political elites to look seriously at the question of how equitable is the democracy in Guyana for the minority groups. This is an issue we have raised from the very inception of ROAR, labelling it the “African Ethnic Security Dilemma”. We offer the following piece that has been published several times over the last decade.

“Democracy” has become the standard for evaluating the credentials of governments across the world in modern times. Never mind that we may be all a bit fuzzy on what exactly is “democracy”; we just know that we must have it. But even if we all were on the same page on the details of “democracy”, we have to appreciate that democracy, or any other type of governance structure for that matter, is merely a means to a particular end. To wit, the facilitation of a harmonious society in which each member can fulfil his or her human potential to the fullest. Even when we claim that we have a “democratic” government, it behoves us to always question as to whether its particulars are fully in sync with the idiosyncrasies and foibles of the given time, place and circumstances.

And this brings us to our “democracy” in Guyana . No one would deny that as opposed to the form of governance we endured under the PNC, Guyana is more “democratic” by many of the common indicators. Freedom of the press, speech, movement, political participation, civic association etc. are much more advanced than previously. But is our society more harmonious? I do not believe that any Guyanese would answer in the affirmative. And why have we lagged in moving faster the end-state that is the goal of all? We can blame evil politicians, nefarious foreign elements or other extrinsic elements, but we do ourselves a disservice if we do not examine the institutions of our democracy that are supposed to deliver the “good society”. Form does affect function.

After all, political institutions and structures provide the framework and incentives through which the moral links essential for encouraging the accommodation and cooperation between parties, to develop. We have to examine if our “democratic” political institutions are most appropriate in facilitating our people to reach consensus on our societal arrangements. The first idiosyncrasy that jumps out at us when we compare our society to the more stable “democratic” ones is the depth of our societal cleavages. For many well-documented historical, psychological and structural reasons, we are what is defined as an ethnically plural society. We are not unique; in fact most states across the world are multicultural, even though the cleavages may not be as intense as ours.

With the spread of the now universally accepted norms of equality and self-determination ethnic groups across the world have balked at political arrangements that exclude them from the governmental decision-making process, which they insist is the sine qua non of democracy. To deal with their demand, governments across the world have been tinkering with their institutional arrangements to give greater entrée to previously excluded groups, especially minorities. The approach has been labelled “power sharing”, which one commentator has defined as, “ a term used to describe a system of governance in which all major segments of society are provided a permanent share of power ; this system is often contrasted with government vs. opposition systems in which ruling coalitions rotate among various social groups over time.” The latter, of course, is what we have in Guyana , with the singular exception that with our entrenched ethnic pattern of voting, it is very unlikely that there will be any “rotation” of rule. Hence the calls for some “power sharing” arrangements.

In addressing the problematic of institutionalising democracy in plural societies, the two broad approaches are sometimes subsumed under the rubric of “power sharing”. One popular conception views it as sharing the executive offices of a government proportionately among the political representatives of the several groups mobilized in the society. This view, of course, conceptualises “power” as a unitary construct residing in the executive branch of Government and implicitly contraposes “sharing” power with a centralization of power under majoritarian rules. This popular conception, of course, is reflective of our historical experiences, which saw the powers of the state always controlled by a tight little oligarchy – first centered on a colonial Governor and then our Executive Presidency.

Power, however, is a much more nuanced concept and even if confined to being a possession, rather than inhering in relationships, the power of a state is much more diffuse than an executive possession. Power sharing, in our view, would have to include the wider picture, and would have to encompass a much wider range of institutions – both within and without the state. We shall expand on this in our next article.

The common idea of democracy as a set of procedures to be followed to elect a government has to be revisited to appreciate power sharing. We have to insist that the rules of procedure should lead to the substance of democracy: the involvement of the widest agglomeration of “the people”. By definition the people of every society that has formed a state has transferred some of their powers to the organs of the state – the executive, the legislature, the judiciary, the police and armed forces etc. Procedural democracy is a methodology that allows the people to determine how the powers of the state are to be used, by them voting on issues. It allows the power of the people to be agglomerated rather than shared. Universal suffrage therefore is a rule that allows all the citizens of the society to make their views known and presents the greatest possibility for the widest possible agglomeration of the power of the people. Notice, however, that we still restrict, through stipulation of a minimum age and mental competency requirements, as to who are “citizens”. We do this under rules that we accept are just – one should have acquired some level of understanding before being allowed to direct the operations of the state.

In an analogous fashion we should accept that rules which encourage the widest possible agreement on an issue is fairest to the democratic principle. The rule that a simple majority – one vote more than fifty percent : the majoritorian principle – is sufficient to represent the will of all the people as to how their delegated powers to the state is to be used may be the simplest but we must concede that it has not been accepted in our plural society. In our constitution, which accepts an even lower agglomeration – plurality rather than majority – for capturing the Executive, the “democratic” fairness is even more questionable. Who should quarrel with a search that seeks to incorporate and obtain the consent of a greater bloc for decision-making on “national” issues? To those who may complain that this arrangement may impede efficient governance, we know that liberty and equality, not efficiency, is the prime imperative of democracy.

Gov't and Labour (Episode CLVIII): Neutering of a “man rat”

2006-01-22T20:02:00.000-05:00

By Ravi Dev

One has to acknowledge the PPP's doggedness (some would say cussedness) in trying to control Labour (with a capital “L”). Maybe, it grows out of their origin in the late forties after the Trade Union movement had pioneered the fight for workers' rights since the turn of the century. I mean, what was a party led by socialists and communists to do? Besides muttering about the dangers of “reformism” versus the “dictatorship of the proletariat” under their collective breaths, that is. The leaders of the PPP jumped into trade unionism since they saw very clearly (and very early) what power control of that strategic bloc of voters could deliver into their hands.

In 1953, one of the charges levelled against the PPP government by the British when the Constitution was suspended was that the PPP was attempting to control the Trade Union Movement by introducing new rules that would affect the granting of recognition of Trade Unions. Too much power would reside in the PPP Minister of Labour, the Imperialists fumed. Mind you, the said Imperialists knew a thing or two about controlling Trade Unions since they had bought out the main sugar union and controlled the recognition process for all other aspirants.

The PPP didn't give up. During their second turn at the helm (1957-64), they reintroduced a Labour Relations Act that became the occasion (but not the cause, as Burnham remarked famously) for stimulating protests, which eventually culminated in the ousting of the PPP government in 1964.

And so began their long (and oft invoked) twenty-eight years in the (political) wilderness.

As a founding member of the PPP, a card-carrying member of the socialist fraternity, and most importantly the beneficiary of the Labour Movement's support in the ousting of his arch-rival Jagan and the PPP, LFS Burnham did not fail to recognise the strategic importance of Labour (with a capital “L”). He plucked a loyal member of its ranks to be his Minister of Labour and rewarded the rank and file handsomely with pay raises. All was well in the kingdom of labour as the PPP Union GAWU languished outside of the State trough alongside its political controllers.

LFS Burnham did not believe in depending of the goodwill of any person or group: the man knew control. He facilitated the creation of a string of “paper unions”, all beholden to him, through which he controlled the votes (and the support) of the trade union umbrella body, the TUC. The TUC was then given the sole authority to bargain with the Government for wages – at a time when the Government controlled, in its own words, eighty percent of the economy. As Burnham moved to consolidate his power and make himself completely independent of even “friends” in labour, cracks began to develop between Government and labour once again. The TUC complained that not an “iota” of its recommendations had been taken on board in the formulation of the 1980 Constitution.

The cracks widened during the regime of Desmond Hoyte, culminating in an open split between the “paper” unions and the larger ones having support on the ground. This led to the birth of FITUG in 1988. The return of the political phoenix PPP in 1992 to government saw a return of a coterie that accepted as an article of faith the need to control Labour, since “democratic” practices were going to be insisted on in governance. There are many ways to kill a cat, as Burnham once remarked (not so famously) as he proceeded to adumbrate them quite graphically.

The PPP worked assiduously and had the Trade Union Recognition Bill passed in 1997…achieving one of Cheddi Jagan's most cherished goals in the year of his death. The TUC post-1992 had become a very chummy club, suffering under the misapprehension that they has arrived a modus vivendi with the PPP government.

They had forgotten their experience with Burnham; maybe hope beats eternal and all that. By 1999 however, relations had inevitably soured between the PPP government and major blocks within the TUC. You can't have two man rats living in the same hole - one has to be either chased out or neutered.

The contradictions were coming to the fore and the PPP continued its historic march to neuter labour. Yet in 2000 when the ROAR supported union in the sugar belt – the GSWU – moved to challenge the PPP's GAWU at the polls, the TUC sat in silence as the PPP government callously violated the letter and spirit of the Trade Union recognition Act to deny democracy from entering the Trade Union Movement.

The Trade Unions themselves were obsessed with control: abused children had become abusive parents. Many unions themselves are festering sores of anti-democratic practices.

Of recent, the Government has moved to deny unions of their very raison d'etre : negotiating for salaries and working conditions for their membership, under cover of the IMF/World Bank conditionalities. During the past five years, the Government has unilaterally imposed wage packages on workers in their employ (teachers, sugar workers, public servants, etc.) in clear contravention of rules governing the settlement of labour disputes. In that time, another incarnation of FITUG has broken off from the TUC – this time friendly to the incumbent government.

Last week, the latest salvo (Episode CLVIII for those who are counting) in the struggle to control the votes of the poor slobs, who labour to keep the economy going, was fired. The Government introduced a Bill in Parliament designed to remove the requirement that the TUC be consulted on some key labour matters (such as determination of the composition of the Trade Union Recognition Board, etc.). Using the converse of the strategy deployed by LFS Burnham for control (remember his creation of a slew of paper unions?), the PPP is proposing that only the five largest unions be consulted.

One is supposed to accept that it is a matter of pure serendipity that the members of the government-friendly FITUG just happen to form the majority of the five largest unions.

Ah well, hasn't it always been that the more things change the more they remain the same?

Fragmentation and Coalition

2006-01-15T11:40:00.000-05:00

by Ravi Dev

It should not take much to accept that a society ought to be a joint venture that should involve all its members, should it not? After all, if we think about it, why else would people stick together unless the result of their sticking together serves to fulfil one or more of their goals? In this year when we are scheduled to have General Elections to decide who are going to govern our society for the next five years, we ought to ask ourselves these questions and come up with some answers as to what kind of government may be best suited to facilitate the fulfilment of some of our common objectives and goals in life.

Few Guyanese can honestly be satisfied with the performance of the PPP government today. What goal is fulfilled when some individuals from the community of Black Bush, which has been submerged for weeks, are shown garlanding the President and his entourage to the beat of tassa drums? How is it that these individuals are still being accepted in the community after the officials depart even as all their neighbours contemplate the losses that will drive more of them into despair and suicide? The community already tops the country in the suicide sweepstakes.

The resignation and acceptance of humiliation stems from the fact of our societal fragmentation: the people of Black Bush Polder see themselves as “PPP people” and are prepared to accept privations so as not to “embarrass” their Government. In most functioning societies it would not matter whose Government it was; if the Government didn't fulfil its mandate, even its supporters would let them know in no uncertain terms. But we live in a fragmented society: if we criticise “our” Government we believe it helps “them”. And this we must never let happen; never mind that our own aims and objectives in life are being stymied in the process.

This condition typifies the “fragmented” society. Even though the aims and objectives of all the people – their conception of the “general good” – may be one and the same, they cannot arrive at a point when they accept that they have to work together to achieve those aims and objectives. Is there anyone out there who believes that all Guyanese do not want peace, prosperity and happiness? How do we get out of this crippling state of fragmentation?

First and foremost we have to accept the fact that we live in a fragmented society. We shouldn't beat around the bush because the truth doesn't sound good: this would amount to a denial that ensures that we remain fragmented and backward. The reasons for this fragmentation are myriad. There is the fact that the European colonialists conspired to leave the Indigenous Peoples in the interior as they populated the Coast with labourers dragged from every corner of the earth. Our diversity in race, religion, colour, nationality, ethnicity etc. gave a whole new meaning to the term “polyglot”. The British “divide and rule” policy in the late colonial period did not help matters.

In the modern era, however, the major energy to fuel the continued fragmentation comes from the political system and actors. Our political system studiously ignores the fact of our diversity and insists that there be an official “opposition” that must oppose the Government. All this does is to deepen the fragmentation because of the composition of the government and the opposition. Contrary to those who insist that the “opposition” must oppose “constructively”, the reality of our fragmented society guarantees an alienation and desperation that ensures stridency and militancy. It didn't matter who was, or will be, in opposition - the PPP or PNC – the present political system will deepen our fragmentation.

Eventually we the people of Guyana will have to accept that the only constructive and viable political system for our country is one that encourages our political representatives to work together to achieve our common aims and objectives. And such a political system means coalition building. We know that our political history has generated a tremendous amount of cynicism and even hostility towards coalitions. But this should not stop us from trying: it simply means that we have to be more innovative to create the conditions in which coalitions can work to give us what we want.

The PPP has rejected calls for political coalition building in the present: the objective conditions are different, it claims, from when it was the champion of that point of view. We believe that such a position is disingenuous: the societal fragmentation that is channelled into the political fragmentation is as deep as ever. And getting deeper based on the radical options that some have embarked on to break the logjam. But even if the PPP has valid grounds for its extreme scepticism towards political coalitions, it can still set the stage for cooperative behaviour by changing its stance on how it addresses national problems.

Take the floods that have overwhelmed our drainage systems for the second year in a row with devastating consequences for our people. The floods have not been partial – they have engulfed communities of all societal and political persuasions. The national human disaster, however, presents the PPP with an opportunity to move this country forward in a systemic rather than a superficial way, even if it does not want to enter into political coalitions at this time. The PPP can back off from controlling the response to the floods and place the coordination in the hands of the CDC – which is supposed to be a non-partisan national body.

The CDC then can be the vehicle for the involvement of all Guyanese, both individually and organizationally - whether political or civil - to achieve a national objective. This can be the beginning of real coalition building that may help to lower the level of doubt and scepticism that some harbour at the political level. With some luck (and concern for our nation's future) we may move towards the political coalition building that is the only way forward.

Twilight of the living wage

2006-01-08T11:39:00.000-05:00

by Ravi Dev

The PPP is fond of referring to itself as “a working class party”. The PPP/C Government, we are assured at the drop of a hat, is also “working class”. I, however, have been taught that “the proof of the curry is in the eating” and I'll tell you, from the way the government has been dealing with workers' demands for “a living wage”, I wonder how the curry would have tasted if the government had been “anti-working class”!

Or is it that the Government, like putative good parents, is harshest to those who are closest to it and the subsistence wages are for the workers own well?

One of the mantras of Marxists, such as the PPP, is that the “working class must have a living wage”. This, of course, is their call while those blood-sucking capitalists are in control and while these goodly representatives of the workers try to establish the nirvana of “the dictatorship of the proletariat (workers)”.

Recently, however, the “working class” Government has been unilaterally imposing five to seven percent pay raises for teachers, public servants and sugar workers. What has happened to the mediation and arbitration procedures that the Marxist PPP claims to have championed over the last five decades?

These workers represent the largest block of workers who pay taxes in this country and when one factors in that the increases in cost of living during the same period have also averaged five to seven percent, one can understand why workers on the whole feel that they are just holding on to life by a thread.

The sad truth is that the PPP Government has adopted this “one size fits all” approach to “living wages” because it has always used the “working class” as means and never as ends. That is, the workers were to be mobilised for the PPP to secure power but once that was accomplished the party would decide what was good for the workers.

This is the essence of “democratic centralism”: the party bosses know what's best for the workers. The fact, as in this case, that workers want to have wages that can at least give them some hope of dignity is beside the point.

The PPP is using the excuse that the World Bank/IMF have insisted that wage increases must be limited to the rate of inflation. In other words, if prices go up by five percent then wages must not increase beyond this. One hears the voice of the IMF Mandarins when Dr. Luncheon explains the government's cap on wages: it's a reflection of our economic performance and huge debt service; our macro-economic situation imposes significant constraints. QED.

The government is very comfortable with this incantation and goes along because those institutions are pouring massive sums into the country for “development” and, more importantly, funds from which all the fat contracts can be awarded and all the fat cats can get their “milk”.

After all, if the PPP were serious about the reality of Guyana's dire economic straits (and this is the reality) then it would have done some serious belt tightening of its own. The Marxist concept of “praxis” insists that theory must be tested by practice. I don't see many (any?) of the PPP leaders enduring a lifestyle that reflects “the constraints imposed by the economy”.

No praxis here, thank you. But then again, they may be just bravely and selflessly testing the decadent capitalist lifestyle to make sure that the workers would not be harmed when their turn comes. It is obvious than an extended testing period is in store since thirteen years of fat for the ‘boys' have passed and the workers are still hearing that “lean” is their lot.

That the IMF conditionalities are not the real constraint on wages is demonstrated by the fact that the government has consistently overspent (that is run a deficit) way beyond the three percent that it had promised the World Bank. It's obvious that the government is willing to break the macro-economic rules – and the World Bank will accept it - for spending that it considers important enough.

It is for the government to argue the case. We recently had the President doling out hundreds of millions of dollars to football and to the armed forces. Was this in the World Bank/IMF wage-cap agreement?

And that brings us to the real issue – what is the government policy on wages? Where do the wages of workers stand in the PPP's grand scheme of things? During the teachers' strike of 2003, the Minister of Education declared, “Teachers had no greater call on the national budget than any other group in society.”

In playing to the gallery the Minister was exposing the lack of a coherent wage policy. One “wage size” can never fit all in a properly designed wage policy.

The Government knows as well as anyone else that in the economic development of our country there has to be a prioritisation as to which sectors need more attention and also what kind of skills it needs to encourage.

For instance, in the Government's Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme (PRSP) worked out with the World Bank, the government insists that “quality of education” is a key component of the programme. Now how can the Government be serious about education as a priority, spend billions of dollars on schools and then say that teachers have to stand in line like everybody else when it comes to wages?

The government is fully aware that its very best teachers are being recruited for the schools of the underdeveloped and developed countries. How can we improve educational delivery without good teachers? An institution isn't just a group of buildings. And it's not just the lack of money. What about duty free cars for headmasters and teachers with a stipulated length of service? What about priorities on house lots? How can we make our children get serious about education – which everyone concede is key to getting out of our underdeveloped mess – when the purveyors of education are seen to be grubbing for a living? When the sweetie sellers can give teachers a “freck”?

And it's not that the government sees the teachers' union and the public servants' union as politically opposed to it. In the sugar belt, as we pointed out above, the government has also been imposing wage increases based entirely on the rate of inflation; even as the work force is cut by a minimum of three percent annually.

These policies flow in the face of the rational tradition that the output of the worker in “productive” industries should be a prime component of their wage increases.

The bottom line, as we see it, is that the average Guyanese, (who are all workers) will have to bear the brunt of the “austerities” while the PPP Marxists live high off the hog. We're in for an extended twilight of the living wage.

New Political Institutions

2006-01-01T11:34:00.000-05:00

by Ravi Dev

(Today, the beginning of a new year in which we are supposed to choose our government, we conclude our discussion of new institutions proposed in my 1990 paper, For A New Political Culture, that may be necessary to provide the incentives for a just and stable Guyana.)

PROPOSAL 2: Party Fragmentation

That a “supermajority” of sixty-five percent of the votes cast at the General Elections be necessary to form the Government.

With the percentage breakdown of the population between Indians, African/Mixed and Amerindians approximately forty-nine percent, forty- two percent and eight percent respectively, the present plurality (or even a fifty percent) majoritorian requirement guarantees that the two major race-groups will jockey and manoeuvre to form a government that they control. The supermajority requirement of sixty-five percent will ensure that they both seek and tailor their programs to attract votes from “across the divide”. This could then be obtained by a coalition either as an alliance of separate parties or within a true “multi-ethnic” party.

PROPOSAL 3 : Political Devolution

That Guyana should be reconstituted as a Federal Republic.

In a society where the major ethnic groups each constitute majorities in different areas of the country, political devolution offers the largest number of initiatives towards addressing ethnic insecurity. There are several variants of devolution ranging from strong Local Government to Federalism. The latter arrangement offers the most benefits to Guyana.

• Abolishing winner takes all politics.

In a federal structure, the central government would be concerned with national issues such as defence and foreign policy. There would be substantial autonomy to the separate states, which will guarantee that the inhabitants of each state have real power over their lives. Police functions, local development, local taxation and spending are only a few of the functions of the State Governments. African Guyanese, for instance, would possess real power in Demerara while the same would be true for Indian Guyanese in Berbice or Indigenous Guyanese in the interior.

• Removing the struggle for power at the centre.

When the centre does not possess all the power, the struggle to control is not as intense. The competition will be distributed among the states as groups within attempt to control. National politics will not be a zero sum game; “losers” will still be guaranteed power at the state level.

• Creating intra-ethnic rivalry

Fragmentation of the electorate leads to a lesser possibility of the majority dominating. East Indian politicians, dominant in Berbice or the Essequibo Coast are more likely to see themselves as rivals for power at the centre. Additionally, within a state, since one ethnic group will have an overwhelming majority, intra-ethnic rivalry will develop since no threat will be perceived to be coming from ‘out groups' and there will be no pleas for ‘not splitting the vote'.

• Encouraging coalitions at the centre

In a situation where different interests will be represented at the centre, there will be incentives for cooperation between various states to ensure the implementation of common programmes.

• Creating fluidity and multipolar balance rather than the previous bipolar confrontation.

As the various states manoeuvre for the maximum benefits for their citizens, the alliances at the centre will shift depending on the issue. This should move the conflict from the more volatile bipolar mode.

• Furthering the political philosophy of Government being responsive to the people and never overwhelming them.

The closer Government is to the people the more responsive it ought to be. The state government should be the most sensitive to the idiosyncrasies of its citizens and region. Local courts for instance would be most sympathetic to autochthonous needs.

• Creation of a dual legislative body

The federal structure facilitates the formation of an upper house comprised of either nominated or elected membership from each state. In the former scenario, those eligible for membership to the upper house would be individuals who have distinguished themselves in their fields of endeavour. In the latter case elections could proceed as with the elections for the assembly. In either case the various groups in the society would have limited vote power over legislation passed by the lower house.

PROPOSAL 4: Distributive policies

That percentage participation targets be established in key sectors of the economy to ensure the equitable representation of all ethnic groups in the society.

Distributive policies are focused towards reducing primarily the gross representational disparities in “valued” areas that are found between groups. In Guyana, for African Guyanese these would be in the areas of business and farming and for Indian Guyanese, in the bureaucracy, police and armed forces.

Distributive policies are the most politically volatile and sensitive. In the long term, if for instance quotas are established in the identified areas to rectify the present imbalances there is the danger of demographic developments later making these same quotas a new area of conflict. Historically, once adopted they are difficult to change. Flexible arrangement of periodic re-negotiation of quotas might resolve this objection, if instituted from the inception of the programme.

A more substantive objection is that by mandating equitable ethnic participation in all sectors, the ethnic division of labour is broken down and ethnic competition is intensified. In addition care has to be taken that “affirmative action” policies taken do not lead to a dependency syndrome being created in the beneficiaries. Rather than set rigid quotas, participation goals can be targeted within a set time frame.

In areas such as business and agriculture, where it is not simply a matter of affirmative hiring practises, long-term training programmes would have to be established to ensure viability of the programmes. The dismal failure of the co-op. projects in the 1970's where land and resources were simply given over to primarily African Guyanese, without the necessary preparatory training and support should be an object lesson.

PROPOSAL 5 : Decentralisation of powers of Central Government.

That the executive powers of the Government be separated from the legislative powers and that the independence of the judiciary be further strengthened.

The present system whereby the President is the Head of State, Head of the Executive, then through his Prime Minister, Head of the Legislature and by his powers of appointment very influential over the Judiciary, lends itself to the “commandantist” form of Government. By separating these various Government powers, tendencies towards authoritarianism would be dampened while competition for the independent offices would encourage intra-ethnic rivalries.

The Presidency would be elected independently of the members of the Assembly. He would be the Head of State with some Executive Powers such as in the French Presidency. The Prime Minister would be selected by the party commanding the support of a two-thirds majority of the Assembly. The Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers would be responsible to the Assembly.

The members of the Judiciary would be nominated by the President but would have to be approved by a majority of the assembly.

PROPOSAL 6: Non-Hegemonic Integration: Unity in /diversity.

That the different cultural strains in the society be encouraged to flourish.

The notion that some groups must reject or discard their cultural heritage to participate in the polity must be rejected. It arises from a barbaric past when nations were forced to “assimilate” by force. Even in these circumstances, ethnic bonds were never completely annihilated – witness Scottish nationalism almost four hundred years after their conquest.

Modern communications facilitates the dissemination and forging of ethnic bonds. Modern international norms of “equality” and “self determinations” of peoples militate against cultural hegemony being accepted by even subordinate groups.

Rather than the “melting pot” idea of integration, the “salad bowl” model should be encouraged. Let each group discover their roots and shape their cultural practise to suit modern exigencies. As each group recognises its own authentic identity they will view other groups with less defensiveness, and be more open to acceptance of the worth of other cultures and values.

PROPOSAL 7: Uniform Economic Development.

That Economic Development plans take into cognisance the ethnic specialisation in the country.

Because of ethnic groups occupying different economic and ecological niches, economic development must be structured so that each group appreciates that it is obtaining its equitable share of the economic pie.

Politics In Guyana

2005-12-18T22:56:00.000-05:00

By Ravi Dev

Guyanese political culture and structures with their philosophy and institutions are an inheritance from the British and, as discussed previously, had evolved to address the needs of a society which was more or less ethnically homogenous. The premises of the system reflected the biases of Liberalism, where the supposedly rational individual engages in a variety of roles and belong to a multitude of organisations and groups whose several interests are cross-cutting. The individual, in his political role as a voter, therefore makes a “rational” choice based on the position a given party takes on the issues before the electorate. Even if all voters do not conform to this ideal, there are enough who do to constitute a pool of “swing” votes for which all parties compete. This situation creates a centripetal moderating effect and the parties line up on a continuum on the issues. Since these swing voters may always change their minds, the majority is always careful to be respectful to the minority. The essential principle is “audiatur est altera pars” – the other side must also be heard.

Divided Societies

The party system in a divided society operates on a totally different basis. Here the individual is a member of groups which, instead of diffusing the cleavages, act to reinforce them. For example, Indians in Guyana will generally attend different places of worship, work in different occupations, have different modes of recreation, etc. than Africans. The “broker institutions” that each group participates in, and which represents him in the larger society, are also ethnically based: trade unions, political parties, etc. Affiliation is thus not based on the party's position on a variety of issues but generally on one issue: which group's interest does the particular party represent? Party membership is generally ascriptive, where individuals perceive their fate in ethnic rather than individual or class terms. Party competition, in general, reflects ethnic competition. While this situation is less stark than it was in 1964, the ethnic fears are still persistent. Hoyte has been labelled “Desmond Persaud” by some African Guyanese for his supposed encouragement of Indian participation in the economic realm in the last few years.

Working against parties that attempt to be multiethnic is the existence of “flank” parties or groups. These are found within every ethnic group and take positions which can be considered extreme in favour of their given group. The major “multiethnic” party is forced to respond to their demands so as not to lose support. Since the demands of these flank parties are invariably particularistic and in opposition to the “‘out” group, the major parties move away from the centre as they respond. In Guyana, for instance, Indian supporters forced the PPP during its term of office to take such “Indian” positions as control of church-run schools, etc. Between 1964 and 1972, ASCRIA played a similar role with the P.N.C. In the years following, as it institutionalised its dictatorship, the P.N.C. imposed total control over the political system to prevent the survival of other organised flank groups. But, based on the experience of other similar societies in a more open atmosphere, the latent interests can once again be mobilised.

Multi-ethnic parties

Multiethnic parties have attempted to bridge the ethnic chasm through various mechanisms. In Guyana, the P.P.P. and P.N.C. adopted “socialism”, with its focus on working-class unity, transcending race, which supposedly had no “socialist content”. The Working People's Alliance (WPA), in addition to its socialist ethos (in the early days), introduced a leadership structure where there is no maximum leader but a dual Indian-African leadership. Other parties, and the ones mentioned before, emphasise a non-racial orientation and elect “multi-racial” executives.

In addition to flank pressures, the failure of multi-ethnic parties has been due to the unwillingness of most leaders to accept strong and authentic ethnic leaders from other groups within their parties. The parties invariably end up being dominated by one or the other ethnic group or is perceived by the electorate as such. Divided societies, after severe setbacks due to ethnic hostilities, are more amenable to accommodative measures. In Guyana political parties with the strength to include effective multi-ethnic leadership and programmes to address ethnic fears, could probably convert the two older parties into “flank” parties.

In the absence of the true multiethnic parties, the party system is ethnically based and the politics is of a different kind from that of homogenous societies. Leaders become very important since they have such deep symbolic significance for their followers. Demographics are also important. In a country such as Guyana, with Indians forming over 50 percent of the population, if in free and fair elections Indians vote as a bloc, there is no incentive for them to consider the interests of Africans. The minority, by their numbers alone, after all, could never become the majority. A minority group in such a situation faces the possibility of permanent exclusion from Governmental power. Its future existence depends on the benevolence of the majority - the latter condition, which flank groups from the majority will ensure, is always precarious. The politics of “in and out” becomes the politics of “over and under”, submission and domination. Majoritarian politics, while it may be suitable for homogenous societies, pose grave dangers for divided societies.

Real Democracy

Before the P.N.C. captured power in 1964 and maintained it afterwards by electoral rigging, Arthur Lewis, in considering the uniracial but multiethnic societies of West Africa, made some comments which are quite apropos to Guyana.

“The word ‘democracy' has two meanings”. Its primary meaning is that all who are affected by a decision should have the chance to participate in making that decision, either directly or through chosen representatives. Its secondary meaning is that the will of the majority shall prevail. Politics (in the latter) is what the mathematicians call a zero-sum game.

‘Translated from a class to a plural society, this view of politics is not just irrelevant: it is totally immoral, inconsistent with the primary meaning of democracy, and destructive of any prospect of building a nation in which different people might live together in harmony. Are we, on counting heads, to conclude that…the Indians of British Guyana may liquidate the Negroes?”

In making a distinction between the procedural and substantive aspects of democracy, Lewis highlights the dilemma that free and fair elections pose for a minority group in a divided society. Free and fair elections under the present arrangements, to many African Guyanese, imply a much different scenario than to the Indian Guyanese. For many in the former group, in the words of Arthur Lewis, it connotes “liquidation”. It is for this reason that the P.N.C. did not receive much opposition from African Guyanese when they initially rigged elections in 1968. The PNC was seen as protecting African interests and, if they had to use illegal means to accomplish it, at the worst while unfortunate, it was necessary.

Even after the façade of the PNC as the protector of “African” interests was destroyed in the late 1970's, the overriding security concerns of this community remain. At present, even with the undeniable hardship faced by African Guyanese, while they agree that the PNC must be removed, they are rationally concerned with what will replace it. They certainly do not regard the PPP as their protector. The WPA, with the legitimacy conferred by Walter Rodney and its continued strong African Guyanese representation in the leadership, might play this role as might other multiethnic parties with strong, legitimate representatives of the African Guyanese community.

Arthur Lewis however, to his credit, did not only criticise present arrangements but suggested possible avenues out of the ethnic dilemma.

“The democratic problem in a plural society is to create political institutions which give all the varied groups the opportunity to participate in decision-making… Each group wants to be represented by its own party and no single party is accepted everywhere… the solution is not the single party but Coalition and Federalism.”

Federalism and decentralisation

2005-12-11T16:10:00.000-05:00

Ravi Dev Column

There is no disagreement among all the political parties of Guyana – and most influential commentators - that governmental functions and powers are too centralised. This is not surprising in light of the manifest failures of the centralised Colonial State we inherited and the even more centralised authoritarian state created in 1980. Of recent, even the World Bank in 2003 had occasion to criticise this aspect of Guyanese governance. Several of the international UN agencies, such as PAHO, have insisted that their programmes be implemented in a decentralised fashion. In fact PAHO's areas of demarcation fall exactly as the proponents of federalism have proposed the new state boundaries.

Following the Constitutional Reform process in 1999 (precipitated by violent street protests and ethnic violence), the PPP and PNC instituted a Special Committee on Local Government Reform but the recommendations are yet to be tabled in the National Assembly. As the “reformers” still haggle over the specifics, it is reported that, while the village councils are supposed to be “strengthened” in a move to make governance more responsive to local needs, the reforms yet envisage local Government only in terms of “decentralisation”. Obviously then, power will still emanate from a “centre” from which it is expected to flow outwards. And this is the nub of the contradiction in the proposals of the PPP, PNC and all those who claim that they desire “power to the people.” ROAR holds that, unless the “centre-periphery” links are given Constitutional protection to ensure that the periphery is consulted by the centre, real power will never be shared.

Desmond Hoyte, who had been the architect of the Regional decentralisation initiative introduced in 1980, began to loosen up the state functions on his accession to the Presidency in 1985. But, like the leaders of the PPP who succeeded him in office and his own party inheritors, he rejected Federalism even though he complained about the failure of the regional arrangements. For instance the PNC, in its submission to the Constitution Reform Commission in May,1999, had proposed that:

“There can be no real democracy without a strong, vibrant local government system. This system would provide for the decentralization of power, the devolution of authority, and the participation of large numbers of people in the decision-making process in their communities…There should be a clear understanding and acceptance that the Regional Democratic Councils and the smaller Local Democratic Organs are part of the Local Government system and not agencies of the Central Government. To this end, therefore, the RDC's should now be organised accordingly. They should exercise the power to raise revenues by taxation and otherwise, and be responsible for a range of activities in their respective Regions as identified by law.”

The PNC was implicitly recommending that the powers and “legal framework” of the RDC's should be constitutionally enshrined. If this were to be done then the only difference in their proposal and that of those who propose the federalist option on the question of allocation of competencies, would be to add the stricture that the central government cannot unilaterally alter the defined powers of the regions. Passing further “lesser” laws will never keep the centre out of local affairs. If the PNC and PPP and others are serious about the Regions having the powers to execute their programmes, they should be aware that in the past the centre always altered the regional powers by diminishing them. Opponents to the Federalist option may have many reasons for rejecting federalism –and they should clearly state these - but amongst them cannot be the need to have a less centralised government.

For unlike the present “regional system”, in a federal arrangement, the powers or “competencies” of each province would be constitutionally defined and changes in the Federal or States powers would have to be mutually agreed on. The central government would not be able to unilaterally change the power relations as has been their wont the world over.

Local Government

The prolonged period of authoritarian government has unquestionably destroyed much of the initiative and competence of the local communities to manage their own affairs . We agree with the renewed focus on the revival of the Village Councils, reportedly contained in the latest local government proposals. After the abolition of slavery in 1834, the freed African slaves had established several villages on their own initiative. They created Village Councils to run the affairs of their communities and these Councils were the incubators of much of the leadership in the African community, and formed their links to the county and national Governments. The Councils, through various committees such as drainage, etc., were able to develop local expertise in managing organisations. The introduction of the National Democratic Committees (NDC's) that agglomerated several villages into one entity, while on paper may have appeared as a logical progression of the Village Council arrangement, ignored the historical and geographical realities of the village movement. Residents were still focused on problems in their particular village and this focus has reinforced the geographical fact that the villages are strung linearly along the single main road and are each separated by canals.

The Indians by and large remained on the sugar plantations for another century after slavery and those who moved off mostly remained rural bound. The new and massive housing schemes created by the sugar companies from the early fifties were all centred on the plantations, and the affairs of these communities were run by a Sugar Industry Labour Welfare Fund (SILWF) that perpetuated the paternalistic rule of the “big manager” of the plantation. The new Indian villages formed outside the ambit of the sugar plantations, on rented land, did not establish village councils and so, to an extent far greater than the African community, they are deficient in the mechanics of running and organising their local affairs.

The Indigenous Peoples were always the most excluded from the running of their own affairs. Their traditional village structures were undermined by the Catholic Church, which, in a de facto manner, assumed administration over them. Subsequent to the Regionalisation plan, both the PNC and PPP Governments have attempted to resuscitate the indigenous village governance structures. In early 2004, the PPP initiated a training programme to inculcate the rudiments of village governance in the Touchaus or chiefs of the various villages. Unfortunately they have insisted on using the programme to cultivate a cadre loyal only to the PPP rather than to the local people. Any revival of the Village Movement in other parts of Guyana will have to be accompanied by an intensive non-political programme of education in the running of these bodies. The community will have to receive a new focus for several reasons, but primarily because it has been neglected by policymakers in not realising its role in the organisation of the activities of the citizenry.

Sugar and People

2005-12-04T16:03:00.000-05:00

by Ravi Dev

(With sugar, like so many other areas of national concern, one falls into a state of déjà vu as the news rolls in. The EU has given final confirmation of their massive price cuts – 36% over four years – a paltry 3% change from their original proposal. So much for all the storm and fury created by our representatives. President Jagdeo still asserts that factories will not be closed – but now hedges – for at least another five years. Most comfortingly, he also still promises that the sugar workers will be the first to know when the PPP makes a decision on the factories. The PPP still hasn't understood the message of the following article published a year and a half ago.)

Well, the other E.U. sugar foot has dropped. The special prices we've been getting for the 167,000 tons we ship to them will be drastically slashed within the next three years or so. I wasn't surprised at the agitated cries about betrayal and perfidy that emanated from the W.I. Governments and sugar interests - that's pro forma. I was intrigued, however, by their wide-eyed protestations of surprise at Europe 's move.

After all, hadn't Europe dropped the first foot over two years ago with the announcement that their sugar regime would be “reformed” - come hell or high-water? Hadn't their Commission laid out three quite specific scenarios as possible options? Wasn't the E.U.'s ploy of the E.B.A initiative a signal that they were pulling the moral underpinning out from under the A.C.P.'s basket-case argument? I mean, guys who are only breaking a contract to help others in much more dire straits can't be all bad! Was it possible that our Caribbean political directorate and brain trust (no, they're not the same) thought that the status quo would be preserved? Do they live in never-never land?

No, they don't. In Guyana at least, the Government since 1998 had articulated and begun implementing a Strategic Plan for the sugar industry. Predating the EU's manoeuvres, as it were, it was the plan proposed to make the Guyanese industry competitive in this millennium. Several governmental functionaries, including President Jagdeo when he was Finance Minister, defended various aspects of the Plan that we had questioned. So we must look elsewhere for the reasons of the local shock (if not awe) at the European move.

I believe that the major reason for the expressed astonishment arises in the Government's refusal to be totally open with their sugar plan from the very beginning. Rather than having the people of Guyana, especially the sugar workers, understand fully the consequences of the sugar plan for the country and the workers, they kept on insisting that the plan would make everyone live happily ever after. The PPP, of course, were keeping their eyes on the electoral implications of downside risks inherent in the plan on Indian sugar workers. The PPP was insisting that GUYSUCO had to modernise, raise production and cut costs for the industry to meet imminent challenges. They simply didn't want to spell out, however, that those strategic moves would eventually place all the burdens on the workers. So, now that even the dour projections of the plan are being exposed as based on faulty premises, the Government has to feign surprise at Europe 's “infidelity”.

Very ironically, the very political fallout that the Government is trying to avoid was occasioned by an identical act of sugar's British market over 150 years ago – removing their preferences for W.I. sugar. Most of us have forgotten that the real reasons for the abolition of slavery and the beginning of indentureship weren't acts of philanthropy, but acts of economic expansion to be furthered by free trade. The old “Mercantile System”, in which British traders took British-made baubles, exchanged them for slaves in Africa, sold these in the New World and brought “exotic” products such as sugar, coffee and tobacco back to Britain , had run its course. British industry had grown large on the backs of slavery and Empire and needed vaster markets. Free Trade was to be the New World Order.

We should be reminded that in that first re-ordering of trade arrangements that should have forced reform of the industry in the W.I., Britain also didn't liberalise totally in one fell swoop. They first announced that they wouldn't buy sugar from any slave-trading state –they followed up, of course, with the abolition of slavery. They undercut planters' resistance by taking the moral high ground, as with the EBA of today. The abolition of slavery presented all involved with the opportunity to ponder the future of W.I. sugar without protected markets. What was to be done? Invest in new technologies? Abandon the industry? Seek new labour to exploit? It should be noted that the planters received compensation for the loss of their slaves, so that they had the wherewithal to exercise some of the options mentioned. We know that in Guyana the planters chose to invest in new factories while importing huge numbers of indentured labourers to depress the wage rates sought by the freed slaves. This is a point we have been emphasising elsewhere that now has increased relevance in the present.

Does all of this sound familiar today - Europe demanding free trade and our modern planter class (the PPP government) insisting on new factories and cheap labour? How have we come full circle? What had happened to the free trade regime that followed the Sugar Duties Act of 1846? How come we became dependent once again on protected markets? Did Britain (perfidious Albion ?) realise the folly of her earlier betrayal and come to the rescue of her imperial children? Hardly. Once again the change came about because it suited European interests.

After the two world wars in the 20 th century, Britain had backed off “free trade” and reintroduced preferences for Colonial sugar for purely pragmatic self-interest - because it wanted to remove rationing of sugar in its home markets and the sugar would be paid for in sterling that it could simply print. It saved foreign currency while it made the British “cuppa” a bit more palatable to its war-ravaged population. We should be reminded that Europe accepted the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement between Britain and ACP in 1975 for the same pragmatic reasons. The effects of the 1974 five-fold spike in sugar prices was still stinging, and Europe was not then self-sufficient in sugar production. Government to government agreements for supplies were very much in the air – OPEC has just nearly brought down the whole economic edifice of the West. So we had the Sugar Protocol which, as our policy makers were so fond of reminding us, was to be of “infinite duration”.

Today, as Europe once again goes down the free trade route to secure greater markets for their products, let us understand that the recent proposals on price cuts signal the start of what will be an eventual abandonment of all preferences with ACP on sugar. Nothing is infinite – even time. It's another wake-up call for us to cogitate on the future of our sugar. Let us not be partisan. Europe will do what it has to do to push Europe 's interests. Let us put our interests first.

Once again the workers are being asked to bear the costs of adjustment - loss of many “custom and practice” benefits; loss of API (Oh, yes, this will go!); sharing non-existent “profits” that they have no control over; i ncrease in t emporary workers; non-living wage for out of crop work. (Remember the home-alone children?) This cannot stand.

(To be continued)

Drama on the High Court

2005-11-27T16:00:00.000-05:00

By Ravi Dev

A great drama is unfolding in Guyana today. Unfortunately, it is being played out in a theatre that most ordinary Guyanese do not normally frequent – the Parliament and the Courts. This is most unfortunate because the drama is a real life one and has grave, some may say, fatal implications for those same masses, and in fact all Guyanese. Some might even say it is a Guyanese tragedy in the making.

The story begins with the PNC in the streets of Georgetown after the December 1997 General Elections and goes on to the Herdmanson and St. Lucia Accords which brokered a settlement. Basically the Accords stipulated that the Constitution would be amended to give the Opposition greater input into the political system. Most of the changes were centred on Parliament, where several standing committees were established to offer the Opposition a role in scrutinising the operations of the Executive. The Government has repeatedly adverted to these changes as they claimed to have created, “the most advanced constitution in the Caribbean ”.

However, there were some other changes in the Constitution that gave even more significant powers to the Opposition but on these the Government was silent. Chief among these was Article 127 that deals with the appointment of the Chancellor and the Chief Justice in the Judiciary. Before the constitutional changes of 1999, the President could appoint these notables after mere “consultations” with the Opposition Leader. The Constitutional Reform Commission (CRC), chaired by Mr. Ralph Ramkarran of the PPP, proposed a radical change: in 9.9.3.5 of their report they recommended that, “the Chancellor and Chief Justice should be appointed through a consensual mechanism.”

What was radical about the change was that in reacting against the cynicism of Mr. Burnham who had used the “consultation with the Opposition Leader” requirement with quite a grain of salt, the CRC had already redefined “consultation” to give it teeth: consultation now had to be “meaningful” by following specified procedures. The CRC was in addition now stipulating that the President and the Opposition Leader had to reach “consensus” on these appointments. This was a very advanced position – especially after the recommendation was approved by the Special Select Committee of Parliament.

This Committee, set up to make “proposals and decisions” to Parliament on the CRC's recommendations, had such PPP heavyweights as Messrs. Reepu Daman Persaud, Ronald Gajraj, Feroze Mohamed, Bernard De Santos, Lawrence Rodney and Ms. Philomena Sahoye-Shury. They submitted their approved change with the stipulation that, “the legal experts tasked with drafting the Constitution would formulate an appropriate provision to capture this recommendation.”

This is what the drafters came up with and what Parliament approved and the President signed into the highest law of the land: Art.127(1) The Chancellor and the Chief Justice shall each be appointed by the President acting after obtaining the agreement of the leader of the Opposition.” This was tantamount to giving a veto power to the Opposition Leader – especially in light of the fact that there was no saving mechanism in the event that such agreement could not be reached. This concern about a possible impasse was raised by legal luminary, Mr. Bryn Pollard, in the press at the time, but no changes were made or proposed by the Government. Presumably, I had always assumed, because the formulation captured the intent of the framers.

In many countries where there were problems with entrenched majorities and minorities (in plural or segmented societies) the major theorist of Consociationalism, Arendt Lipjhart, had proposed, as a power sharing measure, that the minority group be given a veto power over sensitive areas of concern to them. The Judiciary was certainly a sensitive area in Guyana and not only to minorities here but in countries even without deep divisions. Citizens everywhere believe that if they cannot have recourse to impartial justice then the whole edifice of the state soon crumbles.

I only got wind that the Government may have problems with Art. 127 when the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Constitutional Reform (on which I sit) began to mention to the Committee two years ago that there may be problems after Chancellor Desiree Bernard goes off to the CCJ. Nothing was placed on the agenda of the Committee however. The other foot dropped when the President announced earlier this year that his nominee for the Chancellorship was Chief Justice Carl Singh but that he could not reach agreement with the Leader of the Opposition. Since that time, the Chief Justice has been performing the duties of the Chancellor as well as those of his own substantive position.

Then out of the blue, without any consultation with members of the legal fraternity (one wonders if the Chief Justice himself was consulted), the Parliamentary Opposition or other stakeholders, a Bill to remove critical functions – especially the power to allocate cases to particular judges - from the CJ and give it to the Chancellor, was dropped before the Parliament. Most observers, including myself see the move as a power play to degut the position of the CJ because it is widely believed that the Leader of the Opposition may have made his agreement to the accession of Justice Carl Singh contingent on the President's acceptance of Justice Claudette Singh as the Chief Justice. One would have thought that this was the sort of “comfort zone” in the judiciary the amended Art.127 was supposed to produce but it is clear that Justice Claudette Singh is anathema to the President. This probably goes back to her ruling on the election petition after the 1997 elections even though lawyers close to the PPP widely concede that they would have ruled the same under the circumstances. If the President is forced to concede the CJ position to Justice Claudette Singh, he is ensuring that the Opposition will have an empty victory. But wouldn't the tragedy be Guyana 's? How much faith would the ordinary citizen have in such a Judiciary?

The CRC introduced an introductory Article to the section on the Judiciary – Art. 122A (1) All courts and all presiding over the courts shall exercise their function independently of the control and direction of any other person or authority; and shall be free and independent from political, executive and any other form of direction and control. It is this principle that the President and the Government appear to be violating as they play hardball politics, and in the process destroying any confidence in their own nominee.

To use a cricketing analogy, the position of ROAR is that we cannot change the playing field just to compensate for a wayward bowler. If the Government believes that the Constitution needs to be amended to deal with lacunae, ambiguities or contradictions in the Judicial System, then the proper thing to do is to table the matter in the Committee on Constitutional Reform for them to make a recommendation to Parliament. The two-thirds requirement for approval there should not balk the Government. After all, the requirement was put there just for the purpose it will serve, won't it? Wide confidence in our Judiciary. Let us remove dramas from our courts and return them to the TV.

GTF Core Values

2005-11-13T18:49:00.000-05:00

by Ravi Dev

Today we publish the Core Values of the Guyana Third Force (GTF) to which the members, Guyana Action Party (GAP), Rise Organise And Rebuild (ROAR) Guyana Movement, Unity Party (UP), Working Peoples' Alliance (WPA) and Vision Guyana, have signed on. They have been linked with several Articles of our Constitution, which is the highest law of the land.

1) INCLUSIVE, TRANSPARENT AND RESPONSIVE GOVERNANCE

Inclusive Governance

The plural nature of modern societies in general, and our Guyanese one in particular, ensure that there will be diverse interests amongst the people.

Since this diversity will be reflected in the institutions that they choose to represent them in the realm of politics, it is logical that the approach to governance must be inclusive.

To proceed otherwise is to ensure that the legitimacy of governments and other institutions will be challenged by large sections of the community.

This inclusiveness, therefore, is not limited to the form of government (which would lead to the politics of consensus and coalition building) but should inform all processes of governance.

Transparent and Responsive Governance

The authoritarian form of governance inherited from the colonial era has been perpetuated by all succeeding governments.

This form of governance locks out the citizenry from the workings of the state and inevitably leads to high handedness, inefficiency and corruption.

A “Freedom of Information Act” must be enacted but is only a beginning. All the workings of governance must be subject to scrutiny by the representatives of the people.

The Parliamentary Sectoral Committees must be allowed to receive petitions directly from the public, in accordance with the stipulations of Article 13, to assist in ensuring that the Government is responsive to the concerns of the people.

Chapter II: Article 13
The principal objective of the political system of the state is to establish an exclusionary democracy by providing increasing opportunities for the participation of citizens and their organisations in the management and decision-making processes of the State, with particular emphasis on those decision-making that directly affect their well-being.

2) FREE-ENTERPRISE ECONOMY

A free-enterprise economy does not mean a nineteenth-century, robber-baron, capitalist economy as some fear.

It simply means that the primary driving force for economic activity will be incentives in the form of private ownership and accumulation and the major coordinator will be the market forces which will provide the necessary discipline for our products to compete in the modern world.

The state will have a role not only in the regulatory arena but also as a generator of economic activity (privately owned) when the private sector is not making full use of economic opportunities (market failure).

The model proposed is along Japanese and Far Eastern lines rather that the total reliance on markets as implied by the Washington Consensus guidelines (market fundamentalism).

The social capital generated through our village movement that created so much economic activity in the beginning has unfortunately been sidelined. We have to re-invoke and nurture the spirit of cooperation that is still surviving to generate economic activity at the village level.

Chapter II: Article 14
The goal of economic development includes the objective of promoting and encouraging an economic system capable of achieving and maintaining sustainable competitive advantage in the context of a global competitive environment, by fostering entrepreneurship, individual and group initiative and creativity, and strategic alliances with domestic and global business partners in the private sector.

3) STATE AS A FACILITATOR OF PROGRESS

As mentioned in the section on “Free-enterprise economy”, the state has a role in facilitating economic activity but its role does not stop there. The state has a role to facilitate distributive and all forms of justice and can utilise policies such as Affirmative Action to enable disadvantaged groups to develop themselves.

Ethnic Impact Statement

In an ethnically divided society the operations of the State must be seen to be fair to all groups. It is proposed that an “Ethnic Impact Statement” be submitted to a special unit to be established within the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) when any legislative act or administrative regulation is promulgated. The Constitution already provides for the ERC to deal with this requirement:

By Article 212D (j), one function of the ERC is to, “monitor and review all legislation and all administrative acts or omissions relating to or having implications for ethnic relations and equal opportunities.”

Chapter II: Article 15
The goal of economic development includes the objective of laying the material basis for the greatest possible satisfaction of the people's growing material, cultural and intellectual requirements, as well as the dynamically stable development of their personality, creativity, entrepreneurial skills, and cooperative relations in a plural society.

The state shall intervene to mitigate any deleterious effects of competition on individuals or groups of individuals.

4) GUYANESENESS: PATRIOTISM, NATIONAL PRIDE AND A SENSE OF DUTY

One of the main impediments in the path of our development has been the absence of a strong, overarching sense of “national identity” that would facilitate the cooperative spirit necessary for achieving the success we all want for our country in the community of nations.

There has been an unfortunate confusion between “ethnic nation” (centred on the various strands of cultural heritages) and “civic nation” centred on values that ideologically defines our Guyanese nationality. It is now accepted that they do not have to be one and the same.

We can (and must) foster and encourage values that makes us “Guyanese”: love for this land, sacrifice for Guyana , respect for our national symbols, respect for the cultures of others, friendliness and hospitality, cricket, equality etc.

These values must be nurtured in the homes and taught in the schools.

Chapter II Article 7
It is the duty of every citizen of Guyana wherever he may be and of every person in Guyana to respect the national flag, the coat-of-arms, the national anthem, the national pledge and the Constitution of Guyana, and to treat them with due and proper solemnity on all occasions.

Chapter II Article 33:
It is the duty of every citizen to defend the State.

5) BELIEF IN A SUPEME BEING

Guyana is a very religious society and our Constitution reflects this orientation by invoking the protection of God at the end of its preamble.

The fact that our state is “secular” does not mean the absence of God's guidance in our deliberations, but merely the State's equidistance from, and impartiality towards, the several religions of our people.

With respect to our political and social life, the centrality of a Supreme Being - by definition in all the religions meaning the only Perfect Being – implies the limited nature of man's powers and knowledge.

With this perspective always in front of us, we should be wary of those who claim the possession of “perfect” truth and accept the possibility that we may be mistaken. The politics of accommodation and coalition of interests should then be the logical choice in the political realm.

Preamble: May God protect our people

Guyana Third Force

2005-11-06T10:03:00.000-05:00

by Ravi Dev

There has been much commentary on the Guyana Third Force (GTF) since it was announced a short while ago. Unfortunately much of the observations have focused on personalities rather than the substance of what the group has been attempting to achieve. The greatest confusion has arisen over the nature of the group itself – now consisting (in alphabetical order) of the Civil Society group, the Guyana Action Party (GAP), Rise Organise And Rebuild (ROAR) Guyana Movement, Unity Party (UP), Vision Guyana, Working Peoples' Alliance (WPA), and several individuals.

Most have assumed that the GTF is a coalition. It is not – at least not as yet. While all the participating entities accept that, if they were to contest the next elections as a coalition they would probably do much better than if they proceed individually, they have not formed a coalition as yet. And it is not the matter of the major obstacle to coalition-building in Guyana – the question of leadership.

The groups all accept at this juncture the principle of “situational leadership” or “functional leadership” – where the best qualified person for a particular role at a particular time should be the leader for that venture.

The groups all agree, too, that the government of the day has failed miserably and Guyana deserves a better Government, but they have accepted that they cannot come together simply to get the PPP out of office. It is not just a matter of political theory.

Cognisant of the history of our country, they are acutely aware that such a Coalition of Convenience will almost certainly dissolve and descend in acrimony and bitterness in short order. The revelations in the press about the coalition between the PNC and the UF during the sixties, contained in the now public documents of the US being serialised, shows clearly what happens to the players – and the parties - when they get a Coalition Of Convenience. What is needed for our situation in Guyana , it is agreed within the GTF, is a Coalition of Commitment.

In a Coalition of Commitment, the members all agree on a set of principles that will guide them in their own affairs and in the affairs of the nation. They also agree on a structure and methodology for making decisions. They finally agree on a minimum programme on their plans for their country, which should give life to their principles as it seeks to improve the welfare of the people.

The Guyana Third Force has agreed on a set of six Core Values that satisfy the first requirement: these were summarised and published as a full-page ad as “The Charter of the GTF” a month ago. The agreement on a working structure was agreed on last week. A Draft Programme was drafted a month ago and members have been going over it with a “fine-teeth comb”. Deliberations on it will begin this week.

So what is the GTF at this time? It can best be described as a “Platform” that provides space for the several groups to conduct their deliberations. While this may sound portentous, the process of deliberations itself has proven to be an invaluable exercise in seeking to institute a democratic culture most suitable for Guyana .

We have written much about “deliberative democracy” and its applicability to societies characterised by deep diversity – such as our own Guyana . Democracy, or any form of governance, will only function if the people confer legitimacy on it, that is, when they agree on the rules by which the Government and the State go about their business.

If there is not that wide legitimacy, large sections of the population will look with grave suspicion on the acts of the Government and State and eventually challenge those institutions, unless the rules are amended to give them confidence in the system, in other words: legitimacy. In Guyana such wide legitimacy is absent and has led to the fractious politics that we have experienced over the last half a century.

But it is not just a “Guyanese thing” in divided societies that such wide acceptance of the rules is never automatic. The old days of practising exclusion and assimilation to produce legitimacy is over. “Deliberative democracy” is one approach that seeks to garner wider legitimisation of the political process. One aspect of deliberative democracy is that the political decision-making – about both procedure and substance – must be the result of deliberations that incorporate the views of the widest possible cross-section of the population.

The Guyana Third Force certainly brings together such a cross-section of views. The deliberations must also accept that, because of the diversity of the constituencies, there will not be total agreement on comprehensive world views, or even on the nature of the “general good”. In fact this is the essence of the problem of politics in Guyana . So what is to be done?

One suggestion – which the GTF has been following – is to subject the inevitable several approaches to any given issue to the process of judgement: opinions are subject to the test of “reasonableness” and conclusions are arrived at by consensus. This is not to say that some groups may not in the end still differ on a given issue, but to assert that, once a distinction is made between “public reason” and “private belief”, decisions are much easier to make.

We have found that all the groups in the GTF, by and large, accept that they may have different opinions because of their different cultures or religions (or no religion), but just as uniformly we have found that they do not seek to impose their beliefs on others. We believe that this is a wide phenomenon in Guyana – it is just that the proper platform has not been provided to give it prominence.

The GTF, then, focuses its discourse on our roles as citizens – and leaves for the private realm our other roles. We declare the need for wider and wider deliberations and hope that all Guyana will participate in the creation of a State that all of us can say with pride: this is our Guyana.

The Con Continues

2005-10-23T09:13:00.000-04:00

by Ravi Dev

“Crime stalks the land.” In Guyana today this normally trite expression is so evocative of our reality that we can't really dismiss it as a “cliché”, can we?

I mean, crime is literally stalking our land, from Point Playa to Moleson Creek, and has been doing so with a vengeance since 2001. While there have been sporadic lulls in the really egregious episodes, such as the pitched battles between gunmen in Buxton and the Guyana Police Force, the criminals and criminality and fear are now part and parcel of the Guyanese landscape.

And what has the Government's response been to this descent of Guyana into a state of anarchy and of the rule of the jungle? To wring its collective hands “condemn” the crimes and criminals. Every now and then it also condemns the Police Force.

It has also condemned the business class – the bourgeoisie? – for not being security conscious enough. Cameras, they were scolded, would serve well if they took time to install them around their business premises.

Never mind the cameras in the Inland Revenue Department didn't seem to have served them all that well in a successful robbery of those premises. Never mind that the crime has reached such intensity that even people in shacks are being stalked. And the Government continues to condemn.

Three years ago, we took notice of the Government's penchant for “condemning” crime and speculated that in light of the number of crimes being committed, they must have set up a whole “condemning” department (perhaps next to their “letters-to-the-press” department) to handle the volume of condemnation necessary to deal with the criminal acts.

That department could only have mushroomed: the condemnations have been flowing fast and furious to keep up with the crimes.

Sugar workers are abducted and are never seen again: condemnation! Policemen are shot and killed: condemnation! Businesses are robbed and owners are brutally assaulted: condemnation! Vehicles are torched after their occupants are murdered: condemnation! And so on..and so on, ad nauseum (literally).

In addition to the condemnation, back in 2002, the PPP – the party that asked to govern this country and boasts that the people chose it to do so – organised a “march against crime”!

We were never told exactly whom the PPP were marching against or to whom they were sending a message: they would just “march against crime”. “Crime” was presumably going to be cowed by all these goodly folks marching and sweating under the midday sun.

We concluded then that there was a method to the PPP's madness - and madness it was.

Their purpose was simply to show their supporters that they were “concerned” about crime. Their purpose was to “con dem” into believing that for the party that controls the government of the day to march up and down the public road was to be “doing something” about a phenomenon that was literally destroying the society.

In the latest upsurge of heightened criminality, the PPP-controlled union in the Sugar Industry - GAWU – has now taken up the mantle of crime-busting by marching in the sun.

After the latest abduction of sugar workers, GAWU called the faithful to get ready for a big “march against crime” over a few weeks ago…but nothing has happened since. We wonder if the “faithful” have woken up and rejected the con. And con it remains. The Government is simply playing a game to deflect criticism from its inability to get a grip on the crime epidemic by passing the buck to everyone but itself. But the Guyanese people know that the buck stops with the Government and the Government stops with the President.

On one hand the Government and especially the President cannot take credit for successes - bridges across the Mahaica and Mahaicony creeks handled by one arm of the State, for example – and refuse to take blame for the failure of another arm – here the law enforcement agencies. The bottom line is that the Government is in charge of all the apparatus of the state during its term of office and their successes and their failures are credited to the Government of the day. In the matter of crime and criminality ROAR has always pointed out that the PPP has not shown the strength of true leadership to do what it takes to get a grip on crime.

Firstly, the PPP's leadership has refused to deal squarely with the need to professionalise the forces so that they can fulfil their mandates expeditiously. The PPP has pussyfooted around the issue, fearing a “backlash” because of the suspect political loyalty of the members of the forces. The reality however is that the PPP has the report of the Disciplined Forces Commission, which had the full input of members of the Forces – both past and present. This report provided an excellent starting point for the reform of the Forces but sadly even though the report has been laid in Parliament nothing has been done for over a year and a half. The PPP is deploying its “con” when it blames the Police and does not mention its foot-dragging with reference to reform of the Forces.

Then there is the vexed matter of the need for a Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) unit to deal with the high intensity crime that has become entrenched – especially on the East Coast for instance. ROAR called for such a unit after its rally at Lusignan as early as March 2002.

Parliament subsequently approved the formation of such a unit. The Government at the highest level of the President has promised such a unit. Yet we are still blaming the inability of the ordinary police to deal with a situation that the approval of a SWAT unit is declaring is beyond its capabilities. This is part of the PPP's “con”.

The throwing out of the number of deportees as one of the prime causes of the crime misses the point but deliberately so, because it is part of the “con”. If the deportees are a major cause of the crime wave – and there is no hard evidence of this – then the need for special forces to deal with them is even more urgent. The intuitive assumption that leads the President to pronounce that since the deportees have been exposed to more sophisticated and dangerous types of crimes in the US and elsewhere, they have brought these skills into Guyana , should also lead him to conclude that a more specialised Policing Unit may be necessary to confront them. Any other answer is a con.

The only conclusion we are forced to draw from the PPP's insistence on using the “con” to address crime and not facing it on its merits is that it suits the PPP's interest for fear to stalk the land.

Cynically and grotesquely the PPP appears willing to let dogs of crime drive their supporters into their camp, come elections time.

Telling It As It Is

2005-10-16T14:48:00.000-04:00

by Ravi Dev

The reason why the Government continues to monopolise the state media, according to their propagandists, is that “the activities of the Government must be communicated to the people”. Last week we explained some of the implications and contradictions of that claim, as executed by the Government, and showed that in the execution of its policy how the government has been stifling the growth of a democratic culture. If democracy is to be rule “by the people”, then the people have to be given the facts to make decisions – and that includes the facts presented by the Opposition.

This week we look at the government's rationale from another angle – how much and what kind of “activities of the Government” do the state media and its information agencies “communicate to the people”? What we have discerned is that the Government obsessively puts a spin on the news that it reports with the sole objective of making the PPP look good. We shall look at one initiative of the Government – the construction of a bridge across the Berbice River – to illustrate our claim.

The Government media take great pains to note in every release that the Berbice bridge was on the cards by the PPP “for over a decade”. Now it may very well be possible that the PPP had mentioned a bridge years ago, but it is incontrovertible that ROAR placed this item on the national agenda before and during the 2001 elections campaign. During that phase several Ministers of the Government, including the Minister of Works and Transportation, went on record to state that there was no way that a bridge would be constructed. The PPP is in election mode right now and it is desperate to show the people of Berbice that it is “doing something for them” – hence their media's refusal to acknowledge the role of others in foregrounding the need for the bridge. But is this posture in the best interests of the people? - or of democracy?

Back in 2003, President Jagdeo had announced that, if the floating bridge were over US$20million, the Government would be going with the fixed concrete structure that all concede is the best option for Guyana – the only problem would be the cost. Well, the final figures for the Bridge ( and we know these figures will go only in one direction – up) was announced at some US$31 million, but the state media has never given us the details about why the Government has still persisted with the floating structure. If financing was the problem for the concrete structure, should not the state media explain how the Government was able to secure concessionary financing (as required by the IMF/World Bank conditionalities) for the cricket stadium from India and not for the bridge? Are we to understand that the cricket stadium is financially more viable than the bridge?

The location for the floating bridge was blandly announced by the state media as being from D'Edward on the west to Crab Island and the Corentyne on the East. There has never been any explanation by the State media as to how this decision affects the Government's announced plan (which ROAR also championed in 2000-2001) for a deep-water harbour in Berbice. Does the Government intend to locate the deep-water harbour, supposed to accommodate 60,000 tonne ships, in the mangrove swamps to the north of Crab Island ? If it is to be south of the bridge, will the long and frequent openings of the bridge that this circumstance will necessitate (remember by then we would be shipping the increased Berbice sugar production, as well as rice – not to mention containers from Brazil via the road to Lethem) not inordinately disrupt the east-west traffic? Inquiring citizens would like to know.

Then there's the vexed question of the cost to cross the bridge, which is of greatest concern to the average Joe or Jogan out there. Shouldn't the state media inform the good citizens of Guyana that, according to the feasibility study, the proposed cost for cars to cross the Berbice Bridge would be ten (yes, ten!) times the cost at the Demerara Harbour Bridge - $500 as apposed to $50? Will this not help the people of (especially) Berbice to make up their minds about the gift that the PPP is promising them before the next elections?

Then there's one bit (I can't say it's a “titbit”) of news that the state media surely must concede would be of interest to Berbicians: the CEO of GUYSUCO's announcement of their plans for Rose Hall factory, once the bridge is complete. I'd better give the full quote from the feasibility study lest I be accused of making this up: “Furthermore, Michael Boast asserted that, if the Berbice Bridge crossing were improved, then GUYSUCO, in its efforts to reduce cost and increase productivity, would CLOSE the Rose Hall factory and transport more of the sugar-cane currently processed in the fields on the east bank of the Berbice river to the Blairmont factory, which has idle capacity, and is more efficient.”

Now this does not only affect the poor citizens of the entire Canje (many of whom depend in one way or another on the Rose Hall factory) but the very viability of the floating Bridge structure. The study continues: “110,000 tonnes of sugar-cane would be hauled from fields on the east side of the Berbice River to the west side of the Berbice river. This will generate traffic equivalent to 3,667 heavy trucks.” We should note that this would represent over fifty percent of the projected heavy-truck traffic across the bridge and a major source of projected revenue.

We close on this last contradiction, un-remarked by the state media, for the edification of our citizens in our democracy. In April of this year, the President (reported by the state media) said that, "We are contracting a French firm to do the design (for the bridge).” In August the state media announced that the private Berbice Bridge Company Inc. (BBCI) was contracting the Government/NICL to conduct the tender process for the design/construction, which we are now seeing in the print media. Will the state media comment as to whether the President misspoke, or whether he jumped the gun in order to keep the Berbice populace on the string? Or isn't this news fit to be printed in a democracy?

We, The Guyanese

2005-10-02T14:48:00.000-04:00

by Ravi Dev

One of the most poignant and persistent cries heard around Guyana – especially around elections time – is, “Why do we have to hear about Africans and Indians or Amerindians? Why can't we all just be Guyanese?”

The poignancy is a bit ironic however because those same Guyanese, by and large, have been going into the voting booths and voting along ethnic lines for the past forty years and more.

And creating the problem they implicitly bemoan: divisiveness and lack of a national ethos. What is the problem?

Are we so many sheep that we are led by the politicians to vote in a way that we don't want? The reality is a bit more complex than that and we intuitively know it.

Part of the problem is that the issue is presented as if the fact of our diverse heritage, which has resulted in the presence of different ethnic groups in our country, is in contradiction to being “Guyanese”.

This is a false dilemma. Our reference to ourselves as being “African, etc.” is simply an acknowledgement of our particular heritage – we shouldn't try to erase it, because history has shown that it's an almost impossible task that in the end is not really necessary. For most of mankind's history this was how we defined ourselves and it was not per se the source of conflicts.

The problem arose only a few hundred years ago when Europe, led by England and France , constructed “states and citizens” and a new way of defining identity – by the territory in which one happened to be residing. So if you were in “ Britain – created by the English through the conquest of Ireland , Wales and Scotland ”- you were supposed to be “British” – defined both by culture and by citizenship, and putatively “one”.

The experience of the British (who bequeathed their model of identity to us) should be an object lesson to us.

The rationale for the imposed “nation-state” unity was that it was necessary for the people as a whole to apply themselves in a joint endeavour to build their common prosperity.

What happened in reality was that, contrary to expectation, the particular identities did not disappear. One of the main reasons was that the various ethnic groups did not in fact believe that they were being treated fairly or equally by the state, which remained in the control of the English.

The British have backed off the cultural homogeneous premises of the “nation-state” and have defined Britain today as “multi-ethnic”. Their focus is to ensure that the rights of British citizenship are distributed as equally as possible to all groups as they define themselves.

This is what we need to do in Guyana today. The ethnic conflict that defines our politics – and our frustration – could be an “effect of” as well as an “affect on” the iniquities of the political operations of the state on the various groups.

The task of politics and politicians today in Guyana is therefore to create a Guyanese state that promulgates the values of Guyanese citizenship without regard to race, religion, ethnicity, etc. Once this is done, many of the negative aspects of ethnicity will have disappeared.

Today, for instance, to ask an African-Guyanese to forget that he is “African”, when he believes to his bones that he is discriminated as an African by the state, is to ask too much.

The immediate task is to remove the discriminatory condition which the African person has to react against for his very survival.

Guyaneseness

There is no question that we the citizens of Guyana must see our state and country as a “common venture”.

Whether we like it or not, the modern state is a reality and the unit within which we act and which has sovereignty in the international arena. Yet at independence we inherited a state but not a nation, and one does not identify with the state just like that – that's partially why we have clung to our ethnicities so rigidly.

The problem before us is how do we construct a “unity” of the peoples within our state that does not seek to obliterate our diversities.

We can situate this construction of a national outlook within what has been labelled “Project Democracy” – the creation of conditions where we are all treated as one, equally, by the state.

Equality of opportunity, human rights, encouragement of diversities, due process justice and fair play, and rule of law may seem dry compared to the warmth of the blood ties of “nation”, but they can engender the unity of public purpose and the recognition of individual worth where we can be proud of our common citizenship.

Citizenship of Guyana has to become something that has concrete meaning to all of us. Institutions have to be organised around values that are consonant with the goals of the particular society.

It was the United States, made up of immigrants with diverse cultural backgrounds like us in Guyana, that first attempted to institutionalise this ideological definition of “national identity” when they announced ringingly in their Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

All Americans see these shared ideological values as defining themselves – their “American-ness” – their national identity. When they established as their motto E Pluribus Unum - out of many one – they meant “one” based on ideological not cultural criteria.

The ideological foundations were intended to become supra-cultural values that would transcend the specific cultural inheritances of the immigrant. They succeeded to a great degree, but unfortunately their founding fathers undermined the legitimacy of the ideological premises by implicitly assuming that British culture was going to undergird and suffuse this conception: they universalised the British cultural experience.

This introduced the nation-state identity through the back door, which inevitably became repressive and has rightly been rejected by multiculturalist conceptions such as Afro-centricity.

Today America and Canada as well as Britain , as all other stable democracies, accept that the creation of a stable society must begin with the creation of a just state.

The task of politics and politicians in Guyana today is not to tell people to jettison their heritages, but to create a state that we can proudly say is working for “We the Guyanese people…”

The Other Side of Politics

2005-09-25T14:57:00.000-04:00

by Ravi Dev

While Marxists may have lost the battle on the ground, they appear to have won the war in our minds – at least as far as what most of us believe is the primary motive that drives our political behaviour. Marx, of course, believed that it all boiled down to economics.

All across the globe however, ethnic conflict has mushroomed to become the dominant political confrontation - often spilling over into violent confrontations.

While many of these ethnic conflicts do have an economic nexus, the intensity and persistence of the struggles indicate that there is something more fuelling these disputes.

Someone once famously remarked that man doesn't live by bread alone, didn't he? Man also needs to be somebody and this imperative unleashes drives that go to the heart of ethnic conflict. We have neglected the psychological aspects of political behaviour.

Psychological

The strength of “class”, which Marx postulated as the aggregator of our “objective” interests, fails to satisfy the affective, emotional need of man to belong to a wider collectivity.

The salience of ethnicity is based on its accomplishment of both tasks – it is simultaneously instrumental and expressive. Then, once a person is born into an ethnic group - especially if it is simultaneously a racial group, he really cannot leave that group.

If he attempts to do so, he risks great psychic damage to his “self” because so much of his personal identity is enmeshed with his ethnic identity.

A person's conception of self is formed to a large extent, by the socialisation provided by his primary (read ethnic) contacts during his early years, as he attempts to satisfy the basic needs of affection and belonging.

Psychologists tell us of the processes of externalisation, projection and displacement that the child deploys to both define him, and just as importantly, others.

He projects and displaces much of what his group considers negative onto members of groups defined as “the other”.

Thus by the time the individual enters the wider world of economic and wider societal concerns as a young adult, the new influences are much more diffused, with the class and other roles typically not as intense as the ethnic one.

On the other hand, his ethnic group is the home, the womb, to which he can always return, and from which he cannot be turned away. It is the only social grouping that accepts him for what he is and not for what he does.

The need for self-esteem and worth in the individual is integrally connected with the esteem and worth of the group from which he comes and is reflected in the recognition, attention, prestige and status the group has “earned”.

If this is denied one's group, the negative self-esteem results in the individual feeling debased, abandoned and basically unwanted.

This reflection of the group's ethnic identity in the individual's identity has several consequences. The potential rage generated from these feelings, if the individual or group is violated, may be internally or externally directed.

If it is felt that the ethnic group's interest is threatened, the individual can be motivated to defend it at almost any cost, since to him, it is also literally a matter of his own survival.

It is for this reason that ethnic conflicts are so intense. For the alienated group, active violence is seen as a defense of life: as Menachem Begin, once “terrorist” and later P.M. of Israel said, “We fight, therefore we are.”

Victimhood

One of the consequences of ethnic hostilities and violence is the creation of the sense of victimhood, when the network of relationships – typically provided by one's ethnic group – and the sense of security provided by identity and affiliation, is shattered, especially by violence.

Victimisation arises out of a confluence of three factors: the experience (which can arise out of empathy with ones who the person identifies with – especially members of one's ethnic group) of stunning violence that creates a powerful sense of loss; the violence is not perceived as just or deserved; and the threat of further violence and loss at the hands of the violator is likely to continue into the future.

One of the wellsprings of ethnic violence arises out of the conviction that only aggressive defence of one's self, and by extension, one's group, can deliver any sort of real security.

The political implications of the psychological aspects of ethnic conflict are several. Firstly and most obviously, (but which is most strenuously denied by the political elites) the depth of the connection between the individual and his group must be accepted. Economic justice alone is not going to solve the problem.

The role of the Chief Executive, for instance, is a powerful symbol of group-worth in any society; any political solution must address the psychological need.

Additionally, governmental policies on the whole must openly discuss the group-impact of their implementation.

We have long called for the issuance of Ethnic Impact Statements in Guyana .

Secondly, the attempts to deal positively with the conflict must grapple with the problematic of victimhood. There will have to be an analogous period of public “mourning” by the victims and by society at large.

For any kind of lasting peace to be engendered this mourning must be accompanied by an open acknowledgement by the victimizers of the injustices they committed.

The sense of victimhood must be assuaged and in most instances this has to be the responsibility of all “sides”; very rarely are there violations only from one group in any ethnic conflict.

For those of us who are calling for a Government of Unity and National Reconciliation, those parties that are serious about this route and committed violations themselves, must have the maturity to acknowledge the hurts inflicted and the souls violated. Because of this need for acknowledgement of victimhood, we have long proposed a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” for Guyana . Let us get all the violations out into the open once and for all.

Otherwise, the memories of hurts and violations will be repeated and even mythologised to succeeding generations, ensuring that the conflict will be simmering below the surface waiting for the slightest provocation to explode.

If this period of “mourning” is not conducted, there will never be any acceptance of real change – utterances will be judged to be only empty political posturings and platitudes.

The myths and memories will inevitably seek to raise the self-esteem and worth of one group - at the expense of the others. We see this in the PPP's and PNC's annual commemoration of its “martyrs of the sixties” tradition. We have to do better.

Democracy and Power Sharing

2005-09-18T15:03:00.000-04:00

by Ravi Dev

“Democracy” has become the standard for evaluating the credentials of governments across the world in modern times. Never mind that we may all be a bit fuzzy on what exactly is “democracy”; we just know that we must have it.

But, even if we all were on the same page on the details of “democracy”, we have to appreciate that democracy, or any other type of governance structure for that matter, is merely a means to a particular end -- to wit, the facilitation of a harmonious society in which each member can fulfil his or her human potential to the fullest.

Even when we claim that we have a “democratic” government, it behoves us to always question as to whether its particulars are fully in sync with the idiosyncrasies and foibles of the given time, place and circumstances to deliver us to our goal.

And this brings us to our “democracy” in Guyana . No one would deny that, as opposed to the form of governance we endured under the PNC, Guyana today is more “democratic” by many of the common indicators: freedom of the press, speech, movement, political participation, civic association, etc.

But is our society more harmonious? I do not believe that any Guyanese would answer “yes”. Why have we been literally locked in combat for the past fifty years?

We can blame evil politicians, nefarious foreign elements or other extrinsic factors, but we do ourselves a disservice if we do not begin by examining the nature of our society and the political institutions that are supposed to deliver the “good society”. Form does affect function.

After all, political institutions and structures provide the framework and incentives through which are developed the moral links essential for encouraging the accommodation and cooperation between societal groups.

We have to scrutinise our “democratic” political institutions for their effectiveness in facilitating societal harmony, given our particularities. The first idiosyncrasy that jumps out at us when we compare our society to some more stable “democratic” ones is the depth of our societal cleavages.

For many well-documented historical, psychological and structural reasons, we are the quintessential ethnically plural society. We are not unique; in fact most states across the world are multicultural, even though the cleavages and conflicts may not always be as intense as ours.

Options

Looking at the ethnic problematic across the globe, we have only a few options available to us to escape open conflict, much less just undemocratic government: obliteration of ethnic differences, partition or power sharing.

With the spread of the now universally accepted norms of equality and self-determination, ethnic groups across the world have balked at the first option and rejected political arrangements that exclude them from the governmental decision-making process, which they insist is the sine qua non of democracy.

We are too intermixed for partition and so we are only left with the last “power sharing”. This device has been defined by one commentator (Sisk) as, “ a system of governance in which all major segments of society are provided a permanent share of power ; this system is often contrasted with government vs. opposition systems in which ruling coalitions rotate among various social groups over time.”

The latter of course is what we have in Guyana, with the singular exception that, with our entrenched ethnic pattern of voting, it is very unlikely that there will be any “rotation” of rule and endemic conflict, hence the calls for “power sharing” arrangements.

In addressing the problematic of institutionalising democracy in plural societies, the two broad approaches are sometimes subsumed under the rubric of “power sharing”. One popular conception views it as sharing the executive offices of a government proportionately among the political representatives of the several groups mobilised in the society.

This view, of course, conceptualises “power” as a unitary construct residing in the executive branch of Government and implicitly contra-poses “sharing” power with a centralisation of power under majoritarian rules.

This popular conception is reflective of our historical experiences which saw the powers of the state always controlled by a tight little oligarchy – first centred on a colonial Governor, and then on our Executive Presidency.

Power, however, is a much more nuanced concept and, even if confined to being a possession rather than inhering in relationships, the power of a state is much more diffuse than an executive possession.

Power sharing in our view would have to include the wider picture, and would have to encompass a much wider range of institutions – both within and without the state.

We shall expand on this notion in our next article.

Substantive Democracy

The PPP-fostered position that democracy is simply a set of procedures to be followed to elect a government has to be revisited to appreciate power sharing. We have to insist that the procedural rules should deliver the substance of democracy: the involvement of the widest agglomeration of “the people”.

By definition the people of every society that has formed a state have transferred some of their powers to the organs of the state – the executive, the legislature, the judiciary, the police and armed forces, etc.

Procedural democracy is a methodology, via voting on issues, that allows the people to determine how the powers of the state are to be used.

Universal suffrage is a rule that allows all the citizens of the society to make their views known, and presents the greatest opportunity to combine those views. But the usual rules agglomerate the positions of citizens into competitive blocs rather than shared compromises.

However the rules are not completely unfettered: for instance, we still restrict, through stipulation of a minimum age and mental competency requirements, as to who are voting “citizens”. We do this under rules that we accept are just – that one should have acquired some level of civic understanding before being allowed to direct the operations of the state.

In an analogous fashion we should accept that rules which encourage the widest possible agreement on an issue are fairest to the democratic principle. The rule that a simple majority – one vote more than fifty percent : the majoritarian principle – is sufficient to represent the will of all the people as to how their delegated powers to the state are to be used may be the most expedient, but we must concede that it has not delivered harmony in our plural society.

In our constitution, which accepts an even lower agglomeration – plurality rather than majority – for capturing the Executive, the “democratic” fairness is even more questionable. Who should quarrel with a search that seeks to incorporate and obtain the consent of a greater bloc for decision-making on “national” issues? One proposal the ROAR has proffered is that a two-thirds majority, which will force a coalition between the major ethnic blocs, be necessary to elect a government.

To those who may complain that this “power-sharing” arrangement may impede efficient governance, we reply that liberty and equality, not efficiency, are the prime imperatives of democracy.