Burnham's Political Legacy
By Ravi Dev
Kaieteur News
August 8, 2004
It has been 19 years since Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham died. Many have waxed (and will wax) eloquently about his contributions to Guyana. And these have been myriad - no one can deny that - he bestrode Guyana like a colossus. As to whether his contributions have been positive or negative, it's for us to look at his innovations and judge for ourselves. Today we look at the political legacy he bequeathed to us.
After 1968, the PNC jettisoned its junior coalition partner, the UF, and began to rig elections to remain in office. Burnham explained to his supporters that to act otherwise would be for them to be excluded from power forever. While Burnham undoubtedly had other (and personal) reasons for desiring power, the explication of the African Ethnic Security Dilemma resonated with his supporters. Those who reject "shared governance" outright today would do well to propose some other answer to the African Security Dilemma. It's still a reality.
To retain power in a minority regime, Burnham introduced a form of governance (post-1968) that sought to establish and maintain absolute control over the state and society. In 1988, I applied a model of a totalitarian state introduced by Carl Friedrich to analyse the nature of the PNC regime, utilising seven characteristics of the acknowledged totalitarian Soviet State of the early fifties. The sine qua non of totalitarianism was the pervasiveness of the regime's control, extending through and over every institution and every individual in the society. This totality of control was the overriding characteristic of the PNC's rule, under Forbes Burnham between 1968-1985. Thus, while the word "totalitarian" may seem a bit excessive, I believe that it is most appropriate, based on the facts outlined below.
FIRST: A SINGLE MASS PARTY, LED BY A DICTATOR
While Burnham allowed other parties to exist during the electoral-rigging era, these parties never threatened the PNC's rule, and Guyana in actuality became a one-party state. That is, while other parties might have been permitted to exist, they were never allowed to compete effectively with the PNC. The other parties such as the PPP, UF or newer ones like Democratic Labour Movement (DLM) merely served to legitimise the PNC's monopoly of power in the eyes of the international community. They were to play the role of the "loyal" opposition. If they ever posed a real threat to the regime, as the Working People's Alliance (WPA) did briefly by 1979, then the totalitarian "sharper steel", in the words of Burnham, was bared. Witness the assassination of Dr. Walter Rodney, the WPA's leading light, in 1980. In the same year (not coincidentally) a new Constitution confirmed Burnham's absolute control over Guyana. For good measure, Article 22 of the PNC 's party constitution anointed him supreme leader of his party.
SECOND: A SYSTEM OF TERRORISTIC CONTROL
The House of Israel - loyal to the PNC, "Kick down the door" bandits (sometimes they were the same), arbitrary search and seizures by the police, police informers in every locality, assassinations, ostentatious marches by the army through apposition strongholds, etc. kept the opposition under control, and the population, especially the Indians, in terror. According to Ashton Chase "Among the new recruits (to the Police Force) were persons with criminal records - supposed to give preference to loyalty. It was this element, as well as some 'rotten eggs' from this Guyana Defence Force, who were to become "kick down the door" bandits. Indians responded to the pressure by mass migration: joining the earlier wave of migrants - primarily Portuguese - who had fled the P.P.P "initiatives" during their 1957-1964 terms at the helm. Soon half the country was abroad.
THIRD: A NEAR MONOPOLY CONTROL OVER MASS COMMUNICATION AND EDUCATION
The Government's nationalization of, and PNC control over, the media (radio and newspapers - television was not permitted) and establishment of the GPSA, in tandem with a programme of harassment of the opposition newspapers through libel suits and bans on newsprint, consummated this imperative. The PNC removed the schools from church control, and then used these institutions to impose its vision of society, a new hegemony, on the population. Organisations such as the Cuffy Ideological Institute and the Guyana National Service were created to mould the "new" Guyanese.
FOURTH: A NEAR MONOPOLY CONTROL OVER THE "COERCIVE" APPARATUS OF THE STATE
The Guyana Disciplined Forces - Army, Police Force, Fire Service, National Service, People's Militia and National Guard Service - were expanded exponentially, staffed with a ninety percent African membership and placed under the command of a Burnham loyalist in 1979. All Officers swore personal loyalty to the leader of the PNC, to provide, along with the similarly constituted Police Force, the coercive basis for the P.N.C's rule. The society itself was militarised through the formation of numerous loyal paramilitary organizations such as its youth arm - the Young Socialist Movement and its Women's arm.
FIFTH: THE CENTRAL CONTROL AND DIRECTION OF THE ECONOMY
By the PNC's boast, they nationalized eighty percent of the economy by 1976. This provided rewards far in excess of the "Guyanization" of the managerial strata to which the middle-class P.N.C. elite had aspired in the beginning. Not only was their class expanded, but also they obtained a powerful device to keep dissent in line. Party membership and support for the Party's position became prerequisites for maintaining a job. In Burnham's words those who were fired, stayed fired.
The co-operative, which was to be the cornerstone of the economy, was to be the vehicle for rewarding the lower class African Guyanese supporter. However, it was never the top priority of the P.N.C. brass even though they had persuaded their supporters that it was. When the economy faltered in the late seventies, and the largess to be distributed to its supporters to ensure loyalty vanished, the co-op concept was the first to be jettisoned and lower class Africans now also became peripheralised. African Guyanese now joined the exodus to the "outside". For those who remained, corruption was institutionalised, as it became the avenue of relating to and dealing with the system. Corruption was power and absolute corruption became absolute power.
SIXTH: A NEAR
MONOPOLY OVER
ALL CIVIL
ORGANIZATIONS
Trade Unions, religious organizations, schools, cultural organizations, and social bodies were all either subverted or controlled by the PNC intimidation, by buying off compliant leadership, or by the creation of paper organizations which were given governmental recognition and a place at the Government's trough. Indian organizations were co-opted through the opportunism of their leadership, to rubber stamp P.N.C's policies. These leaders were placed in highly visible, but essentially powerless positions, to create a façade of a "non-racial" Government. Those organizations that refused to "cooperate" were denied the same privileges accorded to the others and ultimately the former were miniaturised while the latter became paper organizations with only sycophantic P.N.C. shell "executives".
SEVENTH: AN OFFICIAL IDEOLOGY
The PNC announced in 1974 that it was a Marxist-Leninist party and was reorganized as the vanguard of the masses. While there have been interminable discussions as to the "sincerity" of the PNC in its avowal, at a minimum, Marxism-Leninism gave the PNC an appropriate vocabulary and methodical postulate for its innovations and excesses. To his credit, Burnham had always defined himself as a socialist and against all criticism, stuck to that definition.
The point is not simply to regurgitate the past but to ask: how many of these Burnhamite innovations (especially the 1980 Constitution) have been preserved by the PPP today and are still defining our political culture? When do we begin to alter our past and create a future?