By Ravi Dev
Politically, Guyana is a country like a bear caught in a trap, and can only eat away its trapped foot in a desperate attempt to free itself. And it is because leaders refuse to consider other forms of governance, such as federalism or consociationalism, which are more suited to Guyana’s history and sociology. When they hear the word “federalism”, for instance, most Guyanese think of Guyana being “divided”. But federalism — simply another way of integrating a country with “factions” – was first explored by the US.
All forms of human organisation are undergirded by ideology or philosophy about how human societies can and ought to be organised. Federalism is not just any form of government. In its most general and commonly conceived form, federalism can be considered as “an ideology which holds that the ideal organisation of human affairs is best reflected in the celebration of diversity through unity.”
Federalism, then, has its particular perspective on governance: to achieve stability with justice in pursuit of the good life — the objectives of most human communities. Federalists are sensitive to the Kantian caution that “ought” implies “can”; so that an understanding of the empirical conditions of the society under consideration is an absolute prerequisite, since each society will have its own idiosyncratic enabling or retarding institutions and structures.
Substantively, Federalism is centred on the values of liberty and freedom, and seeks to give life to those democratic values by integrating diverse groups within societies through accommodation, and not obliteration, of their differences. In the post-modern, post-colonial world, there is not only an acceptance, but a celebration of diversities. As far back as the middle of the last century, the staid British expert KC Wheare pronounced: “One of the most urgent problems in the world today is to preserve diversities…and at the same time, to introduce such a measure of uniformity as will prevent clashes and facilitate cooperation. Federalism is one way of reconciling these two ends.”
Federalism thus seeks to achieve and maintain unity and diversity. It addresses the innate need of people (and politics) to unite for common goals, and yet to remain separate and preserve their respective integrities.
Federalism means organizing our society around the principle of freedom and autonomy, rather than through the calculus of bureaucratic efficiency. To those who may complain that federalism may introduce unnecessary levels of bureaucracy, studies in cybernetics show that a certain amount of redundancy is necessary for optimum transmission of information etc. From this perspective, federalism demands quantum changes in our conceptions about means and ends in politics. Federalism keeps in focus at all times this concern about means and ends, and insists that we cannot intend to have people live in democracy and freedom while utilizing institutions that stifle and restrict the liberty of the people.
In general, there is an inevitable lag between the institutions honed during times of more restrictive conceptions of human freedom and the more expansive ones prevalent today. In Guyana, federalist principles would have to infuse the new political culture to give life to the values of democracy, while institutional changes would have to nurture and inculcate these new values at the personal, social and ideological levels. Federalism deals directly with the fact of pluralism in the post-modern world.
While there will be many expressions of diversity, from a political perspective, we have seen that, in the post-modern world, ethnicity has become the most widespread one, leading to severe strains and this seemingly inevitable and intractable conflict between nationalism/ethnicity and democracy. It combines kinship (the basis of ethnicity) and consent (the basis of democratic government) into politically viable entities through constitutionally protected arrangements involving territorial and non-territorial politics. This is the central need of politics in Guyana.
In the modern world, where groups — especially ethnic groups — have not disappeared into some sort of mélange, and there are far more groups in the world than countries, federalism performs a sociological function by simultaneously facilitating the integrity of various groups and their input into the political system.
Thus federalism combines the seeming contradictory impulses present in all societies, but accentuated in plural societies such as Guyana’s; the need to be united (the principle of solidarity – and shared rule); and the need for groups to live authentically (the principle of autonomy – self-rule).
