By Ravi Dev
I thought it interesting that one of the persons President Granger decided to honour was Dr Alvin Thompson; who, along with himself and Dr Winston McGowan, edited the massive ‘Themes in African-Guyanese History’ in 2009.
Like Granger, Prof Thompson specialises in the history of African Guyanese, and was for decades a Professor of History at UG and UWI. He has made some pertinent comments in the past, which bear repetition in the present, on the silencing of the efforts of Indian Guyanese in the struggle for Guyana’s independence.
In his “Symbolic legacies of slavery in Guyana”, Thompson elaborated on the PNC’s efforts under Burnham to trace a line between Cuffy’s revolt in Berbice in 1763 to the post-Independence PNC Government among several symbolic Afro-centric representations of the “Guyanese nation”. Vere T. Daly, of course, was the historian who spearheaded that effort. The 1823 Uprising and the 1834 Damon Rebellion were two others. Thompson, however, noted that such a symbolic focus on the contributions of one ethnic group would negatively impact a multi-ethnic society, and pointed out that Indian Guyanese felt their heroes had been sidelined.
In a lecture in Guyana in 2013 on the significance of the Berbice Rebellion, he recommended: “It is not only those who have struggled against slavery who deserve to be honoured in visual and other ways by the nation, regardless of their ethnic or their ideology stance. We should welcome the images for trade unionist Hubert Critchlow and President Forbes Burnham. I consider it imperative to honour President Dr Cheddi Jagan, Richard Ishmael and…Sir Shridath Ramphal in statuary form in very prominent places in the capital city.” Critchlow, of course, has a statue in Parliament Buildings’ grounds, and there is a bust of Burnham in Kitty.
On Jagan, he elaborated: “An airport or a building to honour Dr Jagan is fine, but they do not tell the story of his struggles to achieve freedom and promote progress and dignity among the Guyanese people, in the way at least it ought to be told.”
But it is not only Jagan whom Granger is silencing. As a historian, he would be more aware than most of the seismic effect of Indian Guyanese on the achievement of Independence of Guyana. Even before WWII convinced Britain they could not hold on to their colonies in perpetuity, the 1930s’ riots on the WI sugar plantations forced Whitehall to consider the need for ameliorative governance structures. The Moyne Commission was actually taking evidence in British Guiana when sugar workers protested conditions at Leonora in 1939, and the police killed four strikers. After WWII, it was the killing of sugar workers at Enmore in 1948 that led to the formation of the first and only Guyanese national political movement – the PPP circa 1950-1955.
But while Granger gives lip service to the struggle of sugar workers, he did not heed the recommendations of his own Commission of Inquiry to stabilise the haemorrhaging of the industry and bring it to a point of sale in three years. Rather, he unilaterally fired 5,700 of them in a shrinking economy with no hope of alternative employment. That was their reward for their historic role in helping Guyana achieve independence.
The PNC, with Granger as the leader, boasted in its Independence message: “The PNCR is proud of its record in Government and the important role that our party and Founder Leader LFS Burnham played in our country’s struggle for independence”. But in the same, ‘Themes in African-Guyanese History’, he helped to summarise Clive Thomas’s contribution, “State Capitalism in Guyana: An Assessment of Burnham’s Cooperative Socialist Republic’: “African-Guyanese hoped and expected that Independence would serve to enhance their lot. This optimism was understandable, for the ruling party…was led by African-Guyanese; but these hopes and aspirations…did not materialise.”
The summary of Thomas’s overall assessment of the PNC — ‘The Situation of African-Guyanese in the Economy’ — declared: “After over three decades of Independence, (26 under the PNC) there has not been any significant improvement in the economic conditions of many African-Guyanese. In fact, their plight is one of the disturbing features of modern Guyana.”
What can one expect from a Government that would silence its role in the marginalisation of its own supporters? Importing Carnival from Trinidad to dull their pain and ensure there will never be any gain, but continues scapegoating and conflict.
