Remembering Cheddi Jagan
Aura of Incorruptibility Marked This Distinguished Son
by Bernard Heydorn
At 12.33 a.m. on March 6, 1997, a precious jewel of Guyana departed this world. Like the star of the morning, Dr. Cheddi Jagan guided Guyana to the dawning of Independence in 1966, and in its aftermath, valiantly fought to improve the lot of the working poor.
Ironically, the Caribbean suffered a double loss on that same day, when Michael Manley, the former Jamaican leader and a fellow socialist, also passed away.
I am not prone to praise politicians who by and large devote themselves to self-aggrandizement, but Jagan was an exception.
Through his long, distinguished life, this son of indentured plantation workers had an aura of incorruptibility. He was known as a political survivor, a populist, a Marxist, a charismatic figure whom I believe history will judge kindly.
The same cannot be said for his one-time colleague, the self-appointed Guyanese President for life, Forbes Burnham, whose name is rarely mentioned today by Guyanese, except as a quiet obscenity.
Jagan's political star dawned on the Guyanese horizon over 50 years ago in the late 1940s, incidentally not far from where I was toddling around at Robb Street, Bourda, in Georgetown, when the newly formed People's Progressive Party (PPP) held some of their first public meetings.
My next recollection of Jagan was during the turbulent, pre-Independence 1950s, when I lived with my family in New Amsterdam, and British troops were sent to what was then British Guiana. There was heightened political activity at that time as three political parties emerged -- Jagan's PPP, symbolized by the cup; Burnham's People's National Congress (PNC), symbolized by the broom; and Peter D'Aguiar's United Force (UF), symbolized by the rising sun.
In the end, Burnham installed himself as a dictator, using the minimum force required to subjugate the most, and for decades, the broom swept hundreds of thousands of Guyanese, including many PNC supporters, to all ends of the globe and beyond, most of whom would never return to their beloved homeland, as they voted with the feet!
Jagan had to face formidable opposition during the Cold War years, for the forces of British colonialism, American imperialism, and even at times the Churches, were marshalled against him. Slogans such as "Better Dead Than Red", and "The Cup Is Poisoned" rang out in Guyana.
Through this all, this son of the soil weathered the storms with equanimity, and like Nelson Mandela, lived to rise from the ashes. He fought for over 50 years, 28 of which as leader of the opposition (a Guinness Book of Records achievement), returning to power toward the end of his life, and calling for a new world order with is last breath.
I met Jagan just once, last year at York University. He shook my hands warmly as I stood there tongue-tied. He talked, and as he spoke, I was impressed with his concerned, down-to-earth manner, a true Guyanese in every respect.
He had admirers worldwide, including of all people, my elderly mother-in-law, Agnes Niles, and Englishwoman who lives in Manchester, England. Agnes has been a fierce fighter for a renewed social order all her life, and in fact attended the first Pan-African Congress, opened by Jomo Kenyatta, in Manchester, England, in 1945, where "the cause of subject people with little freedoms" was debated.
Jagan's legacy, I believe, is that he resisted the temptation to use the race card, which bodes well for the future of Guyana and the entire Caribbean.
Although his life and work will never be fully acknowledged in countries like Canada, which paid scant attention to his passing, reflecting mainstream attitudes towards citizens of countries like Guyana, his call for a New Global Order of democratic socialism, of the redistribution of the world's wealth, of resistance to unbridled capitalism, has found support in many quarters, including the Pope.
Some people might say that Jagan has made full circle, but perhaps it is we who have made the circle, for Cheddi Jagan never really shifted from his life-long vision of a better life for the working masses.
Ironically, the Americans who haunted him for most of his political life, cared for him in his last days in hospital, and gave him a 21-gun salute in Washington, D.C., as his body left for Guyana.
I pay tribute to the man and his times. It is the passing of an era, a historic time, not the best of times, nor the worst of times, but a historic time, never the less.
There is a lesson to be learned from this. We have only one time, this time, before we go to face the eternal, and Jagan showed us how a single life can count.
Cheddi has gone to take his place in the crown of the Almighty, an Almighty he may have doubted the existence of, especially when he saw the mess-here on earth. In the Almighty's crown he will shine brightly with all the poor ones, all the dear ones, all the precious ones he loved as his own.
I salute you, Dr. Jagan!
by Dr. Charles Jacob, Jr.
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No one has made a greater impact on the political life of any colonial territory in the Western Hemisphere within recent times than Cheddi Beret Jagan. A young, unassuming man of remarkable good looks and unimpeachable character, with a burning desire to serve his country (he is Indian, but no racist, as even his enemies admit) and a keen sense of social justice, he is well qualified for leadership. He knows the sufferings of the Guianese people, the ailments of the country - and the remedy. The people trust him, but their rulers hate him. Although he would be the last one to think or even say it, Dr. Cheddi Jagan is indeed Guiana's "man of destiny."
Born in British Guiana on March 22, 1918, Cheddi Jagan is the eldest of eleven children of a former sugar-estate worker who rose to foreman. Young Jagan attended Queen's College, Guiana's leading secondary school for boys, later proceeded to the United States for higher education.
His parents were poor, as indeed were all those who, like his father, held similar positions in the British-owned sugar industry. But Cheddi was proud to admit to the writer, then a classmate of his at Queen's College, that he used to make his own shirts. His American education was made possible partly by the sacrifices of industrious and ambitious parents, despite their large family; partly by his own efforts, for Jagan worked his way through university by doing odd jobs for his upkeep.
Entering Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1936, he completed Pre-Dental studies, later transferred to Chicago's Northwestern University, from which he graduated Doctor of Dental Surgery in 1942. Dr. Jagan also attended the Y.M.C.A. College in Chicago and received the B.Sc. degree in Sociology.
In Chicago the study of the lives of India's great leaders, Gandhi and Nehru, and their heroic struggle against British imperialist domination greatly inspired him and brought home the realization that there was a job to be done in the land of his birth. The squalor, hunger and oppression which be knew existed in Guiana had to be removed.
It was also in Chicago that Dr. Jagan met and married (in 1943) his wife Janet, then student-nurse at Cook County School of Nursing.
Back in British Guiana in 1943, Dr. Jagan quickly entered the Trade Union movement and, together with his wife, began the struggle to end colonialism. Political education of the masses was badly needed and the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) was formed late in 1946. This marked the beginning of a movement which was to change the face of Guiana and raise the hopes of her downtrodden people.
The following year, 1947, Dr. Jagan won a seat in the Legislative Council, election to which was under a restricted franchise. his was the only voice raised against imperialist exploitation. The people heard it and thenceforth decided to follow him. Big business, though well represented in the Legislature by both elected and nominated members, feared this new star which had come to bring light to the toiling, oppressed masses and would ultimately lead them to freedom.
Out of the PAC emerged the People's Progressive Party (PPP) in 1950. Its first leader was Dr. Cheddi Jagan; today he still leads the Party, which has done more for Guiana's liberation than all other parties combined, because of its militancy and refusal to compromise with imperialists.
Dr. Jagan led the PPP to victory in 1953, became Chief Minister and holder of the important portfolio of Agriculture, Forests, Lands and Mines. After the overthrow of the PPP Government by imperialist intrigue later in 1953, Dr. Jagan was imprisoned for six months in 1954 for "breaking the Emergency Regulations." "Today Guiana is a vast prison'' he said at his trial.. " expect no justice from this or any other court. Justice has been dead since British troops landed."
He again led the Party to victory in 1957, and is presently Leader of the Majority Party in the Legislature and Minister for Trade and Industry.
Today Dr. Jagan is under constant attack by imperialists and their press both at home and in Britain, by former party colleagues whose treachery nearly wrecked the PPP, and by other reactionary elements in Guiana But in spite of all this, the overwhelming majority of the people consider him the only man who can lead Guiana to independence.
Madam President of the Republic,
Members of the Leadership of the People's Progressive Party, Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
My Fellow Caribbean Brothers and Sisters of Guyana, here and everywhere,
It was with much pleasure and gratitude, and with equal humility that I readily accepted the honour of being asked to speak to you today about someone we all knew and of whom we still know; about a man who we loved and still love; about a leader whose ideas still offer us much direction two years after, without much notice, he left us.
Dr Cheddi Jagan's positive influence on the development of progressive political thought outside of Guyana, in the rest of the Caribbean and on the world stage, has been widely acknowledged.
Between the 1960s and the 1980s, Dr Jagan, as the General Secretary of the PPP of Guyana, attended the launching of every single progressive political organisation that developed in that period in the Caribbean. He was also a steadfast builder of political movements in the Caribbean, Latin America and the world. He was indeed a committed Caribbean integrationist and an internationalist by name and nature.
When Dr Jagan addressed the Decolonisation Committee of the United Nations in the early 60s, his appeal was for independence, not only for British Guiana, but for all colonised people all over the world, for freedom for tri-continental people from Africa to Asia to Latin America and the Caribbean. The consummate teacher, he always provided the historical and other data to support his analyses and conclusions. That is the Cheddi Jagan that I remember and whom we all remember today; your teacher, my teacher, our teacher.
Dr Cheddi Jagan always said in 1964 and for three decades after, that his party and people were "cheated but not defeated." That was his essential message throughout his 28 years in opposition.
History indeed absolved Dr Jagan and the PPP on October 5, 1992. On November 9 that year, when all of us throughout the Caribbean, Latin America and the rest of the world watched him take that oath of office as President of the Republic, we all breathed a deep sigh of relief -- that same sigh we breathed again when Nelson Mandela eventually took his oath of office a few years later in South Africa.
Dr Jagan remained a leader and guide in Guyana and the Caribbean. He was a living, legendary inspiration, a fine example -- the best example we knew -- of a gentleman and leader, a simple man of great political and intellectual depth, a warrior with the heart of a lamb, a consistent advocate of world peace, a leader at home whose single most important mission was to achieve once again that level of racial and political unity which existed before the party and people experienced what has proven to be a costly split.
It would be no exaggeration to say that everything Cheddi Jagan said and did while President of the Republic was aimed at that one major objective: unity of the Guyanese people. He lived for that. It meant more to him than being President.
Fate dealt him -- and us -- a major blow on March 6, 1997. But it is worth noting, that while Cheddi had been unable to achieve the level of national unity he strove for in his later life, he did achieve it in death. Indeed, his death brought together over 350,000 Guyanese who participated in the various activities associated with his funeral in Georgetown and Berbice. I would never again like to feel the way I did when we all witnessed his cremation as it took place here two years ago today.
I was not able to return to Babu John last year. But no reason could have prevented me from returning this year to pay reverence and tribute to this great man who, not only Guyanese and Caribbean people miss, but one who the world continues to miss.
That was the Cheddi Jagan I knew and the Cheddi Jagan we all pay tribute to today, two years after his unwelcome departure from our lives.
Dr Cheddi Jagan was a visionary, whether at home or abroad. And if I may be permitted to say so, he was also considered by many the world over to be a man ahead of his time.
Dr Jagan wrote books, he delivered lectures, he told the world that the British and Americans, through their intelligence services the MI-S and the CIA, had collaborate to remove his governments from office in the 50s and 60s. They both denied it. But he lived to see and hear the British and Americans confess that all he had said over the years was true, that all those he named as collaborators and conspirators were in fact guilty.
The Official Secrets were officially and compulsorily revealed after 30 years, but in the end, the truth came out and he was vindicated. The British published their secrets -- and the American ones supposedly got burned by accident. But the Clinton administration itself acknowledged to President Jagan that America had been wrong to him. The Queen of England came here while he served as President and the British government took the opportunity to tell Dr Jagan and the Guyanese people that England was wrong and sorry.
But that was not all about Dr Jagan's visionary abilities. I always remember how he used to talk about protection of the environment and concern for ecological matters, long before everyone else.
Throughout his years, Dr Jagan warned that the international financial institutions such as the World bank, the IMF, the IDB and others were not functioning in the interest of poor people and developing countries, that their programmes were designed to cause persistent poverty in the Third World, that their policies were geared to keep nations and people in eternal debt. Today, the President of the World Bank and the Managing Director of the IMP and the President of the IDB are all saying the same thing. Today, they are all talking and doing things like debt relief and establishing of special funds for poorer countries, just like Dr Jagan had been calling for all those years.
Today, Brothers and Sisters, world leaders are also calling for a New Global Human Order in exactly the same way that Dr Jagan called for all those years in opposition and which he put on the world agenda as soon as he became President of the Republic.
Today, Brothers and Sisters, the same Caricom leaders who Cheddi Jagan walked after and lobbied and urged to get involved in saving Guyana, today, that same Caricom, as an institution based in Guyana, has finally seen the wisdom of his words and the timeliness of his urgings. Today, though somewhat belatedly, CARICOM is involved in Guyana at the level at which Dr Jagan had urged ever since the establishment of the Caribbean Community in 1973, the same year when ballot boxes were hijacked by the army after the general elections.
Such is the man we pay homage to today -- a man whose vision transcended the boundaries of Guyana and the Caribbean, whose existence was not only for his people but for the people of the world. That is the Cheddi Jagan I know and the Cheddi Jagan that we pay tribute to today.
It was always Dr Jagan's dream that all the people and all the races of this country -- especially the two major race groups -- should live as one. He struggled for that both in and out of power.
He and the earlier PPP Leadership had seen it and the people had lived it before in the fifties and into the sixties, in those early days of struggle. They had also seen the fruit it bore.
During his time as President of the Republic, Guyanese showed once more how it was possible to live together and build their nation together.
In the Caribbean, he was viewed as the grand old man of Caribbean politics, the one among them who had most trod the length and breadth of the Caribbean turf. He, for example, when he died, had the distinction of being the only head of government to have been present at every single CARICOM Summit since the establishment of CARICOM, whether as President or as Opposition Leader.
The Leaders of CARICOM over the years respected him even though they did not like his politics. It was difficult for them to evade or ignore him. He worked the floor of the summit venues and called press conferences. He granted interviews, distributed articles and pamphlets and in many other ways informed the decision makers and the press on what was happening in Guyana. The images of Dr Jagan imprinted in our minds are many. He was a revolutionary and a statesman; a humble man with worldly ideas; a fine leader by example; a fighter for peace with the heart of a lamb.
We have all known him in many ways and he has touched each of our lives in one way or another. But no matter how he touched us, no matter what way we have known him, no matter whether as Guyanese or as Caribbean people, no matter where you come from, once you have known Dr. Cheddi Jagan, you cannot help but admit that he was a man worth remembering, a man who left his footprints in Guyana's sands, a man whose words and works shall continue to live with us for as long as we ourselves may live.
Long Live the memory of Dr Cheddi Jagan!
May his fine example as a world citizen guide us in these trying times for Guyana, the Caribbean and the world!
May his vision, his ideas and his ideals inspire us as we enter the new millennium, always remembering that, though gone in body, the spirit of the Great Warrior lives with us, not only here at Babu John, but in our hearts and minds.
May his memory live on and on and on and on and on.....
