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July 5, 2002: Yes, I know in my heart that the PPP is not practicing good governance. Yes, I know there are many wrongs being perpetrated by the PPP government. Yes, I know the PPP hinders progress, national development, social cohesion through a policy of "awe win, awe PPP people must rule." Yes, I know the PPP do not like intellectually astute people with independent minds. Yes, I know that the practice of political culture and state policy by the PPP have strong doses of the Burnham touch. Yes, I know the PPP is utterly contemptuous of the people who fought for free and fair elections now that the PPP is in power. Yes, I know and I see horrible manifestations of incompetence in the PPP government. Yes, I know that the Chronicle is run the way Burnham once run it. Yes, I know about jobs for the boys and girls just as under the PNC. Yes, I know this is the nature of the PPP.
But what has this got to do with opposition to the PPP and the PPP government that involves the beating of innocent people just because of their ethnicity? What has this got to do with the stripping of innocent young girls in the streets who are not PPP or PNC? What has this got to do with attacking parents in front of their little children? What has this got to do with robbing poor people who in a life time will never have the economic resources to make them comfortable in life? What has this got to do with the sadistic obliteration of the business resources of Guyanese entrepreneurs whose only crime is that they love their country and wants to invest in it?
On Wednesday, July 3, the PNC got it wrong again. In 1997, in 1998, in 1999, in 2001, the PNC got it wrong. One would have thought that after all, the people in the PNC would have gone back to the drawing board in the year 2002 and apply history, philosophical thinking, intellectual internalization, and the reality of life and come up with policies, methodologies, blueprints, public relation formulas and commonsensical approaches that would propel them to power in the year 2006 when the next national poll is due. Unfortunately, the PNC shot itself in the foot again.
The problem with the PNC is that it is practicing the politics of pessimism and desperation. It believes that it cannot win a national election. It believes that the PPP government is invincible. So what it does, it throws it hands up in the air and says its is crunch time now. But crunch time for hurting itself, crunch time for people who fear it, but not crunch time for weakening the PPP Government. Recently, I offered an analysis along this line. I attempted to show where the PNC is doing absolutely nothing to broaden its constituency and to strengthen its electoral pillars.
After July the third's long day of agony, savagery, and senseless sadism, the PNC has to have a retreat. And two items can only be on the agenda. One is to decide whether it will continue to remain as a mainstream party with all the accompanying characteristics of a conventional party as what obtains all over the democratic world. If it decides that, then it has to change in the most fundamental way, its strategies for pressuring and seeking to change the Government of Guyana. The other item on the agenda has to do with the abolition of the PNC as a legal institution and its transformation into a national insurrectional military outfit whose ideology is the overthrow of the Guyana Government. One thing is dead sure it cannot be both, meaning it cannot be a conventional political party and at the same time, seek the path of insurrection. There has never been an example of such a political contradiction in modern politics.
Given the way the world is heading, regional and international actors will never tolerate the existence of an insurrection movement in the Caribbean. Because of the obscurity and lack of importance of Guyana in the world community, the major governments of the world will quickly extinguish such a movement to demonstrate to the world its zero tolerance with undemocratic movements. The US. Trinidad, and Barbados will immediately get involved. Maybe in a very large country with a dictatorship that is hostile to Western interests, the West will even encourage such a situation but not in little Guyana. So that option is out for the PNC.
The PNC then by the nature of things in the world of politics has to remain a normal, run-of-the-mill party. But with each passing day, the PNC is living out a self-destructive contradiction. It has to do the things that normal parties do organize; campaign; raise funds; attract voters; maintain offices, equipments and staff; solicit the support of important domestic, regional and international actors; and maintain a high profile public relations ensemble. But since 1997, its internal organization and its organizational modus operandi undermine its ability to perform these tasks.
The PNC, through some weird psychic contortion, has bought a type of stereotyping that Indian people have passed on to their children - African people are bullies who like violence. This is so nonsensical that it needs no debating. My daughter spent eighteen months at West Ruimveldt Secondary school to do Common Entrance lessons with Wilfred Success, and there was never a moment anyone made any violent gesture to me or my kid or used an ethnic insult to us. And this was in the heart of an urban African ward that is a PNC constituency. Many parents I know were afraid to send their kids to that school even though they wanted their children to be taught by Wilfred Success.
What the PNC must understand is that there are countless thousands of African Guyanese who want to change the PPP government but they don't want to see that process involve the beating up of innocent East Indian men, women and children and burning down the business places of Indian capitalists. What the PNC must understand that in Guyana, African and Indians work closely together and they wouldn't stand to see each other get hurt. The PNC should visit Pretty Paul Investments Ltd on the East Bank where the fishing complex is located. PNC leaders will see that the labouring staff is predominantly African. Why PNC leaders think they will stand up and see their innocent Indian colleagues get beaten by political thugs? I write for the Kaieteur newspaper, and I know that a Kaieteur staff reporter was attacked on that fateful day of Wednesday of July 3, and African Guyanese came to her rescue. And this is just one example. In many other situations on Wednesday, Africans came to the rescue of Indians who were under attack.
After the horrors of Wednesday, one wonders if the PNC has not finally lost it. One year after the horrific fires on Regent Street, up comes the violence again. Up comes the beating of innocent Indians. Up comes the attacking of properties owned by Indians. Up comes the mauling of young Indian women and the stripping of them in public view. Up comes the snubbing of Guyana and Guyanese once more by the outside world. Up comes the withdrawal of investments. Will it ever end? I believe you know who has the answer to that question.