History repeats itself — Guyana at the crossroads
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
(George Santayana, The Life of Reason Vol. 1, 1905)
As an immigrant twice over, originally from a country, Guyana, that few people know or care about, I have left my past behind with a steady stream of psychological props such as escapism and avoidance. Over the years, my recovery from the trauma of being suddenly ejected from the country of my birth has been fostered by a robust education, a great family, close friends, and rewarding work from nurturing employers.
I recently read an article about Guyana in The Economist that caught my eye. It was surprising that after all of these years, the topic of my erstwhile homeland still held the capacity to stir up any sort of reaction, emotional or intellectual.
Guyana — called the “Land of Many Waters” — lies on the north-eastern coast of South America, neighbored by Brazil to the south-west, Venezuela to the north-west and Suriname to the south-east. The interior of the country is mostly Amazonian jungle, punctuated by the Rupununi savannah and with a low-lying Atlantic coastline where the majority of the population lives. Guyana had been colonized several times over and by the time the last colonial power, the British, departed in 1966, the die had been cast for a political struggle that has not been resolved, despite many elections and changes in the political landscape.
What is obvious to me and independent observers is that Guyana has not progressed beyond an immature political system based on racial and ethnic heritage. Policies don’t seem to matter: when Guyana had its first democratic elections, if you were Afro-Guyanese (30% of the population) you voted for the PNC and if you were Indo-Guyanese (40% of Guyanese), you voted for the PPP. If you were neither — I am Chinese-Guyanese — then you usually voted for the United Force, a now-defunct political party that espoused business interests. Amerindians (7% of the total), the original indigenous inhabitants of Guyana have never really had a voice in Guyana’s development.
At its inception, the PPP was viewed as a more Socialist leaning party with a Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Originally lead by Cheddi Jagan, a US-educated dentist whose policies were actually that of a democratic socialist, the PPP has been a constant in Guyana’s political history for 70 years.
The PNC was formed by Forbes Burnham, a British-educated lawyer with a law degree from the London School of Economics. Burnham was originally one of the leaders of the PPP but split from Jagan by adopting a more conservative, right-wing ideology in a bid to capture the middle class but more importantly, introduced the concept of racial preference in the Guyanese political system. Racial preference has been an indispensable part of the toolkit of every political party in Guyana since Independence.
When Forbes Burnham came to power in 1964 shortly followed by independence from Britain in 1966, the country was relatively peaceful and was enjoying economic growth. However, this did not last too long; in 1970 Guyana cut all ties with the UK monarchy and revised its constitution to have a ceremonial president to replace the Governor-General. In 1972, Burnham publically attacked “western imperialism” and moved closer to Cuba. The right-wing populist had morphed into a hardcore communist demagogue and the nightmare had begun.
Like many dictators, Burnham deployed an array of policies and tactics designed to intimidate and subjugate the Guyanese population. Suppression of the press, random arrests on trumped-up charges, a full Marxist propaganda toolkit and ballot-box stuffing to win — supposedly — free and fair elections, all became the norm. In 1979, one of my Jesuit high school teachers, Bernard Darke was murdered by members of a private PNC army, the House of Israel. Darke, a World War II Royal Navy veteran turned Jesuit priest and a skilled photographer for the Catholic Standard newspaper was targeted because of the newspaper’s opposition to the ruling PNC’s policies.
The fallout was predictable: the educated middle class fled the country, leaving a hollowed-out shell of a society with 2 social classes: the perenially impoverished lower class and the rich political and business upper class. Burdened by the political oppression, my family left in 1975, quite suddenly and without a proper transition plan. Everyone was scattered in an instant; my brother in Canada, my mother, sister and me in Trinidad and my dad still in Guyana trying to work for a few more years so he could receive some form of meager government pension.
We left many things behind; my parents sold their home and left their life savings in a bank account, unable to transfer their hard-earned assets due to draconian currency controls. For me, I left a rich social and academic life along with all of my friends, including a girlfriend who never quite forgave me for leaving without saying goodbye. I missed everything and everyone and responded by trying to focus on finishing my heavily disrupted secondary school education and getting into University. I compartmentalized and blocked out a lot of things and people from my mind, a process that went on for several years.
In hindsight, even though it was a struggle to recover from this setback, with the right attitude and mindset our family managed to survive — and even thrive — in our new home in Canada. Canada has a rich history of treating new immigrants and visible minorities with respect and affording ordinary citizens many opportunities to have a fulfilling life. From that time onwards, I never referred to Guyana as “my home”; it had become the “country where I was born”.
In April 1999, long after I went through this recovery process, I visited Guyana with my dad and my then-brother in law. It was a nostalgic trip for sure; we visited the tiny village I was born in, Mabaruma which is very close to the border with Venezuela. There, I met a man, Mr. Stokes, who assisted the US authorities to locate Jonestown after the tragedy precipitated by the Reverend Jim Jones who had founded a religious group called the Peoples Temple. In the mid-1970s, Stokes and his wife had become friendly with the young people who passed through Mabaruma on their way to Jonestown. After news of the massacre leaked out, Stokes boarded an American Chinook helicopter and led officials to Jonestown, not far from Port Kaituma.
We flew to the majestic Kaieteur Falls which has a vertical drop of 226 meters which is 4 times higher than Niagara Falls. The area surrounding the falls is designated as a protected area to preserve the natural flora and fauna, the 627-sq-km Kaieteur National Park.
We visited my dad’s old workplace, the Lands and Surveys office in Georgetown. We also saw the abject poverty that many Guyanese had fallen into; Guyana had become the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Some of the main reasons for this poverty include the collapse of the middle class, a relentless talent drain, an inadequate educational system, successive kleptocratic regimes — the PNC and the PPP — that have systematically looted Guyana’s financial assets and a wayward governance structure that has squandered the opportunities that have been placed in front of them.
Fast forward to twenty years to the present; now that ExxonMobil has discovered vast reserves of oil in the Stabroek block, Guyana’s population is salivating at the prospect of being able to raise GDP to $15B from $4B and personal income to $19,000 from $5,000 by 2024. According to the IMF, “this presents a momentous opportunity to boost inclusive growth by addressing human development needs and infrastructure gaps …”
These oil riches have the potential to be a game-changer for the country’s economic wellbeing. Properly managed, the oil revenues could create economic sustainability well into the future and ease the burden of those who have been trampled down by political malfeasance and a variety of personal misfortunes. On the other hand, the risk is that Guyana could score an own goal and become another “Angola, Venezuela or Nigeria” whose oil-rich economies have been subverted by corruption.
Measured by international standards today, Guyana’s national institutions are weak and its systems are broken. Oil revenues, if properly managed and deployed, could help to improve the country’s educational systems and re-build the talent pool, renew aging infrastructure and revive commerce and trade.
It’s easy to blame Guyana’s former colonial masters for the current problems and lack of success. However other countries have successfully thrown off the colonial yoke and set down a responsible path, so Guyana has role models in the world at large. Acknowledge your mistakes, learn from the past and move forward. The time to act is right now before the oil bounty is squandered. As a former citizen of this small country, I am hoping for the best outcomes.
This story is dedicated to my loving parents, family, and friends who have helped me along the journey.
