NATIONAL UNITY

guyana chronicle editorial

ALL our politicians have at one time or another called for National Unity as a prerequisite for national development. Since the present Government assumed office we have heard renewed calls for unity from both sides of the aisle. The recent budget debates have been replete with calls for unity. Never mind the atmosphere in parliament is anything but conducive to unity. It seems that for our politicians, national unity means different things at different times. When in Opposition they prefer a unity that is based on more inclusion in running the day to day affairs of the State. Yet, as soon as they assume office that changes dramatically; they often conceive of unity based on their terms. For example, the Opposition PPP seems to now favour a unity based on parity among the parties. But when it was in office, it practiced the opposite. One of its leaders once declared that it did not mind unity, but one had to join the PPP to be part of that unity. Many have argued that power sharing or shared governance is the most desirable model of National Unity at the level of Government. In fact all of our major political parties have embraced this thesis. But after more than five decades of debates and attempts, we have not been able to arrive at such a Government. As observed above, our parties tend to gravitate quicker to the idea when in Opposition only to retreat when in Government. Again, the previous Government is a good example of this phenomenon. While in Opposition, the PPP had made several moves to form a joint Government with the PNC – at least one of these initiatives had reached an advanced stage. But when the PPP came to Government it change its mind and argued instead that the parties needed to build trust before moving to power sharing. And this approach did not begin with the Jagdeo era – it started on Dr. Jagan who made no discernable move towards power sharing during his more than four years in office. It is our view that national unity has to be pursued at all levels of our society. Critically, it has to be pursued among the people in their communities. We feel that public education along with inter-communal conversations are important. The fear and distrust between our ethnic communities have to be tackled. While these are often exploited by the politicians, their origins and evolution are determined by the historical interactions among the groups. We have to start by admitting that inter-ethnic distrust and conflict are real. We also have to avoid the simplistic definition of national unity as the absence of ethic identities. It continues to be one of the barriers to honest conversations on achieving national unity. The very concept of unity assumes difference. The challenge is how to stop our differences from degenerating, and instead turn them into building blocks for national consensus. In the end, national unity at the level of the people could influence consensus among our leaders at the top. But if our leaders could rise above their differences in outlook and their love affair with total power, we could arrive at a power sharing mechanism that could, in turn, influence more progressive inter-communal relations at the level of our communities. We shall see.