Guyana – Ideological Opportunism
- Introduction
If the spread of the ideology of market fundamentalism took root in Trinidad and Tobago through an evolutionary process among intellectuals and in Jamaica through confrontation with socialist ideology, in Guyana it triumphed because of what may be called ethno-opportunism. Leftist politics in Jamaica, from the 70s onwards, has illustrated the vulnerability of small Caribbean states to the machinations of Western influenced global financial institutions and American intervention. America, particularly with the rise of neoconservatism under Reagan in the 1980s, was taking an aggressive posture towards ‘leftist-speaking’ governments in the region. The invasion of Grenada in 1983 underlined that position. A pragmatic rather than ideological leftist political position seemed a reasonable alternative. A pragmatic approach, however, could evolve into sheer opportunism if the emphasis is on what works in political terms without any regard to underlying principles.
In comparing the extreme ideological views as espoused by the Stalinist interpretation of Marxism and the counter-ideology as articulated by Thatcherism and Reaganomics, Manley characterized the position of the PNP as occupying a middle ground between these “maximalist and minimalist extremes” somewhere from “the middle to the middle-left”. The objectives of social justice should be pursued through pragmatic rather than ideological considerations (Levitt 2005, 284-285). The issue of ideological versus pragmatic positions, which may deteriorate into what can be termed ethno-opportunism, is of particular significance in the case of Guyana.
The politics of Guyana presents a situation that is different from both Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. In contrast to both Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, Guyana has had a history of left wing politics from both political parties. In Guyana from the 1960’s, both major political parties – the PPP led by Cheddi Jagan, and the PNC led by Forbes Burnham – claimed to be socialist or Marxist parties. The struggle, therefore, has not been one of socialist-tending parties versus conservative-tending parties. It has been a case of two ethnically based parties, both espousing some form of socialism, vying for power. In Guyana the issues of ideology, political language, pragmatism, ethnicity and class conflict all seem to meet head on, each seeking its part in the explanation of the problems of that country.
There have been several accounts of this collision of ethnicity, class, ideology and the myriad other issues that define Guyana’s tragic history. These include: Tyrone Ferguson’s – To Survive Sensible or to Court Heroic Death: Management of Guyana’s Political Economy 1965-85 and Structural Adjustment and Good Governance: The Case of Guyana, Ralph Premdas’ study – Ethnic Conflict and Development: The Case of Guyana, Steve Garner’s Guyana: Ethnicity, Class & Gender, Maurice St. Pierre’s Anatomy of Resistance: Anti-Colonialism in Guyana 1823-1966 as well as John Gafar’s Guyana: From State Control to Free Markets.
From its radical socialist beginnings Guyana, like Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, has moved towards an approach that envisages the central role of the private sector in the development process. Cheddi Jagan, for example, in 1997 claimed, “Guyana needs a balanced and integrated Development Programme” based on, among other things, a “mixed economy with the private sector being the engine of growth…” (Jagan 1997, 409). For a politician who championed an ideologically pure Marxism for many years of his political career, this is certainly a radical change. What accounts for this apparent ideological transformation? Burnham also claimed to be Marxist, yet in his struggles against Jagan’s brand of Marxism, he opportunistically (some would say ‘pragmatically’) sided with the capitalist West. In Guyana we see how ideology was confronted by what some term ‘pragmatism’. But pragmatism, when examined in this context, came to look like mere ‘opportunism’, an attempt to gain political power through opportunistically playing up to the requirements and interests of the colonial powers. The reward for this posture of ‘moderation’ or ‘pragmatism’ was support from the colonial powers.
- The PPP and Party Politics in Guyana
The history of party politics in Guyana began in 1950 when the PPP (People’s Progressive Party) was formed. It was a multiracial party that included notables such as Cheddi Jagan, Janet Jagan, Martin Carter, Sydney King and Forbes Burnham. Cheddi Jagan was chosen as political leader and Forbes Burnham as chairman of the party. Jagan, in his time as a community organizer and political agitator, had announced his pro-working class and anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist positions, he considered himself a Marxist. In 1946, in writing about the workers strike in America, he stated, “One can only look forward to the time when this strength will permit the working class to become the only true masters in the production and distribution of all wealth” (Jagan 1946).
There were two strands of ideology to the PPP: one a nationalist, anti-imperialist strand and the other an anti-capitalist strand. Both Jagan and Burnham and indeed both major ethnic groups in the country identified with the nationalist stance. There were those, however, both inside and outside the PPP who, though supporting the anti-colonial struggle, were more moderate in their support of Marxism. These antagonistic tendencies were to be exacerbated after the general elections of 1953, which saw the first democratic elections in the country.
In 1953, the PPP won the elections with a total of 18 seats out of a total of 24 seats in the Parliament, the Lionel Luckhoo’s National Democratic Party won 2 seats and independents won 4. Cheddi Jagan became the leader of the House of Assembly and also the Minister of Agriculture, Land and Mines. Forbes Burnham became the Minister of Education. The British Government, meanwhile, had been apprised of Jagan’s left leaning stance. Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of Great Britain at that time, considered Jagan’s Marxist position to be a dangerous precedent for British Guiana and indeed the entire Caribbean region. Within months of his victory at the polls, Churchill sent British troops to depose Jagan in October 1953. In a speech to the House of Commons, John Gutch put forward the reasons for the invasion:
To prevent communist subversion of the government and avoid a dangerous crisis in public order and in economic affairs… The faction in power have shown by their acts and their speeches that they are prepared to go to any lengths, including violence, to turn British Guiana into a communist state. (John Gutch, 1953).
The Constitution was suspended and the Government dissolved in October 1953 and Jagan himself was ordered not to leave Georgetown. Jagan then launched a civil disobedience campaign and was jailed for 6 months when he allegedly disobeyed the orders restricting his movements to Georgetown. During this time the British courted his colleague Forbes Burnham, the chairman of the PPP. In a retrospective look at the political history of British Guiana since that time, Howard D. French claims in the New York Times:
Since the West backed his supposedly more moderate former lieutenant, Forbes Burnham, allowing him to usher in independence in 1966, Guyana has receded into a long isolation and tense racial divisions.
Mr. Burnham, who died in 1985, quickly proved to be anything but moderate. Leading a racially based party composed largely of the descendants of former African slaves, he espoused a Communist-inspired ideology he called “cooperative socialism.” Detractors say it was a thin cover for a thuggish system of personality cult, graft and cronyism.
Mr. Burnham was succeeded by Desmond Hoyte, his handpicked Prime Minister from the governing People’s National Congress. Though his party had long maintained itself in power by rigging a string of elections, diplomats say foreign and domestic economic pressure cornered Mr. Hoyte into accepting the internationally monitored vote this year. (French, 1992).
The strategy of the British Government was clear. Faced with two leaders both claiming to be adherents of some form of socialism, they decided to support the one whose language was more moderate at that time. It was an appeal to Burnham’s vision of himself as a more competent leader, who could navigate the dangers of the independence struggle against the colonial government by his more ‘pragmatic’, ‘moderate’ position. Garner, writing about the Robertson Commission Report of 1954 on the suspension of the Constitution of British Guyana, claimed that “Robertson established a distinction between the party’s two putative tendencies: the ‘Marxists’, grouped around the Jagans, and the ‘Socialists’, linked to Burnham…” (Garner 2008, 101). This distinction, according to Garner, was to play a fundamental role in the “ethnopoliticization” of Guyana. Garner makes a persuasive argument. In the absence of a real distinctive ideological difference between Jagan and Burnham (both claiming some adherence to state dominance of the economy), the other dynamic, i.e. ethnic differentiation, became the primary means of mobilizing support. Garner claims that the report “played a pivotal role in fuelling ethnopoliticization,” as it laid out the implicit ground rules for the years ahead (Garner 2008).
Garner describes how the struggle between the “Marxist” Jagan and the “Socialist” Burnham took form between 1955-1957. He described it as a struggle between the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) which was supported by the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) and the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) which was associated with communist parties in the West and in the Eastern Bloc. The British Guiana Labour Union (BGLU), Burnham’s union, joined the ICFTU, while Jagan’s GIWU was linked to the WFTU. Burnham’s socialism was seen as reasonable and responsible, while Jagan’s Marxism was seen as extremist and dangerous (Garner 2008, 103). As Garner writes, “Burnham had intelligently and accurately foreseen the attention that the British and Americans were going to lend to the ideological stances adopted by the parties competing for power from 1953 onwards” (Garner 2008, 103). Tyrone Ferguson makes a similar point, pointing to Burnham’s “pragmatism” as opposed to Jagan’s “ideological” position (Ferguson 1999). Rakesh Rampertab, however, describes this “pragmatism” differently. He writes:
Throughout his political reign, Burnham had maneuvered as necessity dictated. Or, as Mr. Partrick Walker (head of a British parliamentary delegation to Guiana in 1953 after the constitution is suspended) noted, Forbes Burnham would “tact and turns, as advantages seem to dictate,” and that “his whole political approach is opportunistic.” In the West Indies and Africa (Burnham, Nkrumah, and some West Indian leaders had met secretly in 1957 [despite Jagan’s initial request to such a meeting, he is ignored], during the independence celebration for a new Ghana), he convinced Black leaders that a PPP government meant an “Indian” state. In Washington and London he criticized the PPP as communist and in Havana and Moscow, Burnham announced himself as an anti-imperialist. He benefited from critical US support while having ties with Cuba. Burnham was, in essence,a politician (Rakesh Rampertab, 2001)
The philosophy of Darryl Naranjit 