(Eyewitness)Sam Cooke famously confessed in song: “Don’t know much about History…”. But with a voice like Sam’s, it didn’t matter much. Not the same for the rest of us who have to deal with snake-oil salesmen. History’s taught as a subject for us to learn what those who came before us did in particular circumstances. And in the present, to the extent the circumstances are similar or analogous, we may act accordingly depending on prior outcomes.

We hear then, about the “lessons of history”. But in Guyana, unfortunately, there are some who’re either ignorant of those lessons or deliberately twist them. Or both.

Take, for example, yesterday’s excursion by AFC’s Ramjattan, equating the rise of Hitler to the PPP/C Government. “The Reichstag of January 1933 saw over 50 per cent of those who held seats being against the Nazi Party. What could have happened that resulted in Germany shortly thereafter having one of the most infamous dictators (Hitler) of all history?”

But rather than analysing the circumstances/factors that led to the rise of Hitler and then comparing them to our situation, the wanker disingenuously went off on a detour and frolic describing characteristics of dictatorships and arbitrarily pinning them on the PPP/C. Is Ramjattan saying that any party starting with less than 50 per cent seats in Parliament will create a dictatorship?? The entire exercise was to throw in the name “Hitler” and PPP/C in the same article.

Well, the cap he placed on the PPP/C’s head could as easily fit the AFC’s or APNU’s head – they each have less than 50 per cent of Parliamentary seats. In fact, like the AFC, Hitler started with a mere couple of seats in the 1920s. And like the AFC, used extremist rhetoric and actions to build his support base. Hitler rose to power by exploiting the resentments of Germany – which is precisely the AFC’s modus operandi here.

Remember the AFC’s racial incitement at Linden – over free electricity – right after the 2011 elections, leading to mass protests, arson, sabotage, strangulation of the interior and killings? Well, Hitler staged his infamous “Beer Hall Putsch” in 1923 by inciting German resentment at the deprivations caused by the Allies after WWI. And this has been the AFC’s Hitlerite strategy since – to polarise the Guyanese people and by stoking resentments.

For a while, before he self-destructed in his greed and avarice, Nigel Hughes was the propagandist comparable to Hitler’s Goebbels. Remember the man’s naked racist appeals to African Guyanese? As his buddy friend would say, Ramjattan’s Freudian slip was exposed when he invoked the name of Hitler.