Hinds’Sight – The ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ approach has not worked

by dr david hinds, guyana chronicle

AFTER Linden’s Interim Management Committee (IMC) Chairman Orrin Gordon, complained of neglect of the town by the coalition government, President David Granger made a swift visit. No press release to the media refuting Gordon’s claims or promise to visit. The President apparently dropped what he was doing and headed to Linden. That was really the correct thing to do. Thanks to the PNC’s internal politics, Mr Granger has had a sometimes indifferent relationship with Linden which dates back to the Electricity Subsidies crisis in 2012. So, in many respects, he has some repair work to do. That is why I am a bit surprised that he had not been more accommodating of the township in his very busy schedule. He has proven to be an outreach politician. One remembers his many trips to the interior before the 2015 elections. Maybe, just maybe, he and the coalition, took Linden for granted. Linden, despite the quarrel among the PNC factions, voted solidly for the coalition. But that should not be interpreted as mission accomplished.

As we know, there is an independent streak in that community that dates back to the early days of the PNC government. It is a community that found ways to simultaneously accommodate diametrically opposed political tendencies such as Burnham’s PNC and Eusi Kwayana’s ASCRIA that morphed into Walter Rodney’s WPA. My suspicion is that the President and the APNU faction of the Coalition, mindful of the PPP’s charges of ethnic cleansing and the general hypocrisy towards race in Guyana, are treading carefully in the African-Guyanese community. It is no accident that the President spends more time in the Amerindian communities, which in our ethnic environment, is considered safe territory. Yet, the reality is that the President’s base is the African- Guyanese community, which voted overwhelmingly for his coalition. And Linden is the extreme representation of that base.

It is always difficult to manoeuvre fidelity to your ethnic base while governing in the interest of all ethnic groups. That is why a Government of National Unity is so crucial to effective governance in Guyana. But while we await such a government, the country has to be governed within the limitations of the current framework.

The governing coalition represents a limited partnership of mainly African-Guyanese and smaller sections of the Indian-Guyanese and Amerindian masses and their elites. That is the reality we are working with and governance strategies must take that into consideration. Those communities have to be engaged individually and together. If we engage them only as a single mass in terms of outreach and policy, we miss the individual dynamics which often differ from the general dynamics. One thing is certain — the “one-size-fits-all” approach has not worked and is not likely to work going forward. It is one of the fundamental mistakes of post-colonial Guyana. The attempt to build a new non-ethnic Guyana as a substitute for our ethnic identities may have exacerbated our ethnic problems. It allowed agents of ethno-political domination to institute their agenda under the guise of Guyanese nationalism. I honestly believe that the recently deposed PPP government was most guilty of this offence. This new government must not make that mistake. It should recognise that our experiment with a non-ethnic Guyanese nationalism was an abject failure. A non-racist Guyana should always be pursued but not at the expense of ethnic identification. Ethnic identification in politics, economics and culture is real and should be acknowledged as such. If we do, then we would be obliged to pay closer attention to ethnic equality in the distribution of common resources. And visits to communities by the President and his top leaders are a valuable political resource. Their presence carries institutional assurances of inclusion. That should not be underestimated. The reception President Granger got from the ordinary people of Linden bears this out. The President should, therefore, undertake similar visits to African-Guyanese communities. He is the President, but he is also their leader. And they want to see him and to speak with him. And from my own visits to 25 of those communities recently, I can assure you that they have a lot to tell and ask him. Similarly, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and Vice President Khemraj Ramjattan need to visit Indian-Guyanese communities. They should not stop at Whim. Those communities need to be engaged first by the Indian Guyanese leaders who should clear the way for President Granger’s engagement with them. I have always felt that Nagamootoo and Ramjattan did not do enough between 2011 and 2015 to sensitise that community to rebel against the PPP’s rot. They have that opportunity now.

(More of Dr. Hinds’ writings and commentaries can be found on his YouTube Channel Hinds’ Sight: Dr. David Hinds’ Guyana-Caribbean Politics and on his website www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com. Send comments to dhinds6106@aol.com)