On The Shifting Ideologies in Guyanese Politics
It came as little surprise to me to see the backlash which David Hinds’ remarks about “lick bottom Africans” has provoked across Guyana. Of particular interest to me are some recent remarks which were made by Attorney General Anil Nandlall in response to Hinds’ remarks. In his criticism of the WPA, Attorney General Nandlall mentioned how the WPA is a disgrace to Walter Rodney and Rodney must be turning in his grave seeing how the WPA is behaving.
As critical as I have been of David Hinds’ comments, I must say that I found this line of criticism from Attorney General Nandlall to be ironic considering the criticisms which the PPP has faced for betraying the legacy of Cheddi Jagan. This was the very criticism which Moses Nagamootoo raised, but he was certainly not the only one. King Perai’s calypso “Fight Down” presented the PPP’s electoral defeat in 2015 as the result of the party betraying Jagan’s legacy by turning towards corruption, greed, and decadence.
The PPP today doesn’t even pretend to share Jagan’s politics. This is why the PPP officially removed Marxism-Leninism from its party constitution last year, although the PPP had ceased to be a Marxist political party for quite some time now. Instead, the PPP opted for a neoliberal approach to economic development.
In the defence Hinds made of himself, he wrote:
My critics are preoccupied by my descriptive words, but they ignore my message. I chose to use folk language. The words used are borrowed from the title of a calypso sung by Trinidadian calypsonian Cro Cro.
I actually agree with Hinds’ point here. A lot of the focus has been on Hinds’ words, but many of his critics missed the message. The message of the song by Cro Cro which Hinds was referencing is that Africans in Trinidad are “lick bottom” for daring to criticize the PNM leadership. Cro Cro was promoting a racialized approach to politics which suggests that African people should continue to support the PNM, even when the PNM fails to adequately address the needs and concerns of its voters.
My primary criticism of David Hinds’ comments is that him quoting a calypso by Cro Cro demonstrated what I see as a reversal from the type of multiracial, class-centered politics which the WPA of the past had advocated for. I wrote:
Hinds himself wrote a paper on Chalkdust’s critiques of Eric Williams in which he presented Chalkdust as being the voice of the people and an artist who challenged authoritarian leadership. Hinds noted that Chalkdust’s music also advocated “Black Nationalism, Caribbean Nationalism and social justice.” Does Hinds now agree with Cro Cro that Chalkdust was a “lick bottom African” for his criticisms of Williams?
The Working People’s Alliance was founded as a political party which was meant to represent the working people of Guyana. It was not a party which was designed to engage in the type of narrow racialized view of politics which Cro Cro expressed in “Compare and Contrast.” In fact, that was the very approach to politics which the WPA of the past opposed.
The same criticism could be extended to the PPP and even the PNC for that matter. There is a reason why the Organization for the Victory of the People presents itself as the real PNC. The PNC of today does not represent the ideological vision of its founder, Liden Forbes Burnham. These parties today do not represent what they once represented in the past.
The PPP, PNC, and WPA of the 1970s certainly had their disagreements and contradictions, but at the core of all three political parties was an ideological vision which embraced anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, and a critique of the capitalist system which exploits poor people around the world. None of the three parties today seem to represent this ideological vision. This, to me, is the real issue surrounding the remarks made by David Hinds and Anil Nandlall’s comments only servers to further highlight this issue.
