Remembering Cheddi Jagan
Cheddi Jagan - A Man of Ideas
by Hydar Ally
There is a saying that small minds discuss people, but great minds discuss ideas. There is a considerable amount of truth in this saying. There are some people who spend almost their whole lives on gossiping and name-calling and hardly find time to engage in any serious discussion on the bigger issues that shape the course of national events and impact on the lives of people in any meaningful way.
Such tendencies are particularly evident among those who lack the capacity for rigorous analysis. Such people are shallow and superficial and therefore tend to focus on immaterial and inconsequential matters which have little or no bearing on reality.
This fact became apparent during a lecture on the Essequibo Coast when, during a question and answer session, one participant asked me whether Dr. Jagan was a “communist” and whether he really believed in a ‘God.’ I thought that the question was interesting if only because it is one that has provoked the minds of several people, many of whom do not have the faintest idea of what communism really is except for some perverted idea of communism as being essentially “godless” and therefore “devilish” and something to be avoided like a plague.
This perception of communism was particularly pronounced during the Cold War period when the battle for ideas was at its peak. In an attempt to poison the minds of the Guyanese people against the PPP and Dr. Jagan, the opposition media and other reactionary forces which included at that time a section of the religious Right did everything possible to project the PPP as “communistic” and therefore “ungodly”.
I remember being told by former Local Government Minister Harripersaud Nokta of an actual experience he encountered during his days as Party Organizer in one of the hinterland communities where an Amerindian virtually ‘disappeared’ into the nearby bushes on seeing his motorcycle coming from a distance out of fear of being consumed by an ‘evil’ spirit. There was another case of an Amerindian woman who was literally shivering with fear on being introduced to Dr. Jagan because of stories being peddled about Communists and their “devilish” characteristics.
The above two cases were not meant to cast our Amerindian brothers and sisters in any negative light, but simply to draw attention to the extent of the anti-communist hysteria that was generated by the churches and those who exerted influence among the Amerindian communities in those days.
Today, such perceptions no longer prevail and Amerindians no longer are subjected to such doses of anti-communist poison as was hitherto the case. In fact, they have come to have tremendous regard and respect for Dr. Jagan and the PPP. The Amerindian community of Karasabai in Region Nine has even erected a monument in his honour. Contrary to what was peddled, Amerindians have now come to the realization that it was this selfsame “communist” PPP that is responsible for enhancing the quality of life of the Amerindian and hinterland communities. It is the PPP that has built a network of schools and hospitals that have resulted in a better quality of life. Ironically, the United Force which was mainly responsible for peddling such preposterous ideas among the Amerindian people during the 1960s has been largely rejected by the hinterland communities and is being replaced by the PPP/C in terms of popular and electoral support as the recent elections so demonstrated.
Dr. Jagan can be described as a man of ideas. He was a thinker who put his mind to work on how to make Guyana and for that matter the world a better place. Responding to a question several decades ago during a visit to the United States of America on his communist leanings, Dr. Jagan responded as follows:
“I am, I believe, generally dismissed in this country (USA) as a communist. That word has a variety of meanings according to the personal views of the man who makes the charge.
“But first of all, I am a passionate anti-colonialist. I, like your foreparents, believe that colonialism is wicked. I believe so strongly that colonialism is utterly wrong that I would gladly accept any help from whatever quarter to help me in my fight against it.
‘I wish to see my country prosperous and developing, its people happy, well fed, well-housed, and with jobs to do. Second only to my passion for the independence of my people is this dedication to their economic advancement, so that their lives may be more abundant. Now, in this I am a socialist. By this I mean that I am in favour of the workers reaping the full fruits of their labour through public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.”
Cheddi Jagan was certainly a man of ideas. He was a propound thinker, one who has transformed ideas into a powerful liberating force. In this regard he was a liberator in every sense of the word. He was instrumental in leading the assault against the colonial authorities to grant constitutional changes which ultimately led to universal adult suffrage. He led the struggle for independence to Guyana and even though independence was denied him by the colonial power, there could be no doubt that it was he who blazed the independence trail by externalizing Guyana’s case at the United Nations and galvanizing the Guyanese people around the idea of a free and independent Guyana. He fought for democracy after it was taken away from the Guyanese people by the PNC regime. He fought for debt relief and debt rescheduling which he saw as a yoke around the necks of people in the developing world. And in the later period of his mortal existence, he championed the cause of a New Global Human Order which incidentally was endorsed by the UN General Assembly.
At the Babu John memorial function held recently, President Jagdeo announced the posthumous conferral of the Order of Liberation on the late Dr. Jagan. This is indeed a fitting tribute to a fighter who had dedicated his entire life for the liberation of Guyana from the bonds of colonialism, neo-colonialism and undemocratic rule.March 2007
by Hydar Ally
The PNC/R in its most recent press statement (November 1, 2007) made the ridiculous assertion that “Guyana has been fortunate to benefit from the change in policy on the part of the International Financial Institutions, which now allows them to give debt write-offs.” As a result, the Party claims, the country has benefited from substantial write-offs, from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The underlying assumption behind this particular mode of thinking is that debt relief was something inevitable and would have come about as a matter of course and regardless of the objective and subjective conditions obtaining in or outside the country, debt relief would have materialized.
This thinking is flawed in a number of important ways. To begin with, debt relief for Guyana and for that matter the rest of the developing world did not come about on a platter as the PNC/R suggested, but came about as a result of strong advocacy on the part of outstanding leaders and institutions, who were convinced that so long as the debt burden remained as high as it was, it was impossible for development to take place on a sustainable basis.
One such leader was the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan, who way back in the early 1970’s, recognized the stultifying effects of the debt burden on the ability of poor countries to grow and develop.
Even in the latter period of his mortal existence, Dr. Jagan remained undaunted in his advocacy for debt relief for developing countries. Speaking to the Sixth Meeting of the Free Trade Area of the Americas Working Group on Smaller Economies at the Pegasus Hotel in Georgetown on February 13, 1997, in what could be regarded as his last official public speaking engagement, Dr. Jagan spoke of developing countries being subjected to onerous debt burden, grinding poverty, high unemployment and increasing social disintegration.
He remarked: “A definite solution must be found for the Third World’s crushing external debt burden. It has now reached unmanageable levels…..
The present mechanism whereby “the more you pay the more you owe” is in need of urgent review. It is some consolation that the IMF and World Bank leaders are now recognizing the need for urgent solutions to these problems. The IMF seems willing now to sell part of its gold reserves to assist poorer countries with their debt problems. Debt relief in the form of debt cancellations, grants, soft loans and rescheduling is urgent if the developing countries are to eradicate poverty, protect the environment, play their meaningful role in expanding world trade and help end stagnation and recession in the industrially developed countries.”
Thanks to the robust and unrelenting efforts of Dr. Jagan, Guyana was able to benefit substantially from debt relief under the Highly Indebted Countries Initiative (HIPC), as a result of which the debt burden was substantially wiped off to more sustainable levels. This momentum was continued under the presidency of Mrs. Janet Jagan and Bharrat Jagdeo, facilitated in part by the return of democracy to the country and the high levels of fiscal discipline and economic prudence displayed by the PPP/C administration.
What the PNC/R did not mention in its release is the fact that it accumulated a staggering debt burden of over US$2B with very little to show for it. Most of the money was wasted on ill-conceived projects such as the glass factory, which was constructed at a huge cost, but which, as it were, never saw the light of day. The returns from these borrowed sums hardly yielded any returns. Instead they accumulated huge interest payments that exacerbated the debt burden to a point where the country was rated as the highest in the hemisphere in terms of per capita debt.
The point in all of this is that debt relief for Guyana did not come about as a result of the magnanimity or kindness of the heart on the part of creditor institutions and nations as the PNC/R is claiming. It came about as a result of hard work and painstaking efforts by the PPP/C administration, in particular Dr. Jagan, who never gave up despite some prophets of doom who felt that debt write-off could never happen.
Of course, one cannot reasonably expect the PNC/R to heap praise on the current administration for the great strides it has been making in the area of debt management, but at the very least one expects that some amount of recognition would be given to the hard work being done to restore this country to a state of creditworthiness after having had to suffer the shame of being declared un-creditworthy by the IMF after the country consistently defaulted in loan repayments.
Today, the debt burden has been brought to much more sustainable levels even though it still remains high. In this regard, credit must be given to our creditors, both at the bilateral and at the multilateral levels for the generosity shown in writing off our debts which now makes it possible to put more resources in the social sectors in particular education, health, housing and water.
