Sharing whose power?
Eusi Kwayana
To share or not to share is the question; whether it is more productive on your own to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous politics or to take courage against a sea of haunting ghosts and, by conversing, end them. This twist in newspaper language to Shakespeare's timeless verse is bad art, but may make a lot of sense for our times. When a group of us first proposed the sharing of government power in Guyana in 1961 conditions were much, much better and more encouraging. Firstly, so much water had not flowed under the bridge. Secondly, no one could argue that the other side had over-stayed its time in government. Thirdly, no inter-communal violence had taken place and so there were no political killings, except by the State up to 1948 at Enmore. Although the bulk of the political wrongs must be admitted on the PNC side, the PPP had been content to gain from first past the post. Our proposals for sharing government were extreme and not half-baked. Joint premiership was the most extreme form of joint government at the executive level. It had not been heard of anywhere. We could have given a lead to multi-ethnic ex-colonies. Neither party at that time saw the recommendation for joint premiership as anything but the utmost madness. It was not even worth discussing. They trained their sights on the alternative proposed as a last resort - partition - and let loose their guns on that recommendation. The joint-premiership recommendation was far from finished or perfect. it was rejected not as imperfect, but as subversive of harmony. It was treated as wicked and crazy. The leading parties saw no need to improve or refine it. For both of them government was something to be copied from an established model. The established model was the "successful" democracies. Of course it worked in Britain. To their credit, our leaders were not about to re-invent the wheel. Here, it did not work. Rather, it wreaked havoc. David Hinds in SN May 11, has a reasonable explanation why and why not. No, it was not that the system was bad. The Europeans did not design a society here in which their system of government could work. And it is they who designed the make up of our society. It is they who exported their political system-a system which in their country had been made by events. Here it was taken for granted, imposed by them as good for us, why did not even know the society as it was to emerge. The rulers were brilliant people, of course, who came late in history and have more than made their mark. But still, they are people who, with all their modern instruments, can bomb a Chinese embassy thinking they are bombing a military honoured, on fair elections The other was the Soviet model of rule by the vanguard party. We know how well they mingled the two alternatives. They did not have the time and space to reflect deeply on where they were, to get a constitution to fit the people, rather than make the people fit the constitution. There are tons of paper with information on what Europe has received from the East, - Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and used to build its own civilisation. Above all they received some treasures of Mind. Their genius was using minds in the making of mindless machines. One machine with a mind we received from them was Power, in most of Europe. Power was coveted, as much as elsewhere, but since it could be lost as easily as it could be won, the voters were treated with some care relative to the countries with a mimic European system. In our original and transplanted worlds, the worlds of our peoples, Power became a personal, family or Party Trophy, not to be surrendered, lest it is lost forever. Dr Jagan described Independence as the greatest prize to be won. In the matter of losing power, the fears of the ethnic minority will always be greater than those of the ethnic majority. For our well being and the well being of those to come after us, we must look on political power not as belonging to a person, or group, not as the entitlement of this or that party. As David Hinds argues, this refinement may not be necessary for single-race societies. Most often they treat it like as a Trophy, but with a difference. In practice they can lose and win again. For us it will be useful to civilise the idea of Power and see it as a social resource, just as the Wind is a natural resource. The Europeans who most felt the need for a non-European solution, since the last century, were the Swiss. Their constitution, in effect, provides for language groups to share the formal leadership of the Executive, for one year at a time. There, too, the pure majority system could have meant endless victory by one party, making elections useless. The Swiss model is founded on a confederal system dating back to the thirteenth century, when the idea was born. (No one country is all-wise, or all-virtuous, however. Only in 1971 did a Swiss referendum allow women to vote in Federal elections and only in 1981 did another referendum grant them formal equality in the constitution.) In our recent history, the first injustice in our system was inherited. It was not the fault of those it favoured. I refer to the two-to-one advantage that the voting system gave to one party, once racial voting had set in. No, racial voting was not always as widespread as it is now. Dr Jagan writes that before 1962, the PPP received about 15 to 29 per cent of its votes from Africans. With all the PPP's fears of jerrymandering, the PPP in 1961 earned 20 seats with 42 per cent of the vote while the PNC won 11 seats with 41 per cent of the vote. The second flaw in our political system was the decision of the PNC to remain in office indefinitely, after breaking up the democratic coalition government of 1964. I have to say that this long reign of the PNC, really 23 years without a fair count, in the main mental barrier to power sharing. It affects the PPP almost through and through and the PPP top leadership as well. Mr Hoyte, as a person who rejected power sharing while in power, has good moral grounds for not embracing it now. Those with political insight on the other side should see Mr Hoyte's attitude as a form of accountability on behalf of the older leadership of the party. Whatever his reason, other than those he has given, it is a more helpful attitude than demanding power sharing now that he is out of power. He could then be accused of wanting the best of both worlds. The younger breed of the PNC do not share this burden. Actively opposing the spirit of power sharing, however, would show him as relying on ethnic swings which have not happened since 1957. I would suggest that his hopes for the country still rest on the mouldy Westminster model, which, of course is better than dictatorship. It is time for more and more countries to civilise political power, by regarding it as one of the social resources. In multiracial societies, it is even more urgent. It is not merely a question of crafting a set of rules and provisions. This is all important and is rightly engaging more and more people, attracting more and more support. But if there is no all round sincere effort at reconciling, that is, getting our minds together, everything we can fall under the corruption of the forty years and the work done suffer rapid erosion. One part of the work need not stop to wait on the other. The Peacemakers must once again be seen as blessed and must be encouraged. Reminding ourselves that Power in society is given by the society, enabled by a Power we have not made, a Divinity, is a good start. It is in its attitude to the sharing of this Power that the present ruling party will declare its enlightenment. It has more of traditional "power" to lose than others. But what can it do with traditional power? We must all get rid of the idea of a guilty race. At the same time we must get rid of the idea of a "wild" race in the forest. It is not the first time I am denouncing the idea of a guilty race. I first raised it in another context in my verse on Arnold Rampersaud in 1976 a stanza omitted in the Mirror through a printer's devil, or a devil in a printer. I went back to it in my long-winded (unpublished) response to Mr Ravi Dev's paper at the GIFT launching. Along with the making of a constitution, we must think seriously of an inter-ethnic pact, which can embody guarantees for all ethnic groups, and while we are on it if women think it dignified, for women and children. The Italian communists once worked for "an historic compromise". This is the kind of soul-based, dramatic Act I am thinking about.
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