That other identity that is being side-stepped
April 19, 2015 | By KNews | Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source
I did not realize until recently how many parts I am split into. I am now told that I have a national identity, a civic identity, a racial identity and a cultural identity. No wonder I am finding it hard to find my true self. I am a composite man.
All of this debate over identity emerged simply because one of the candidates for this year’s elections said that he was not Indian. Immediately his opponents sought to milk political capital by giving their own interpretation of what was said. The allies of the man then decided that they needed to do some damage control. And what better way to do so than to show that the statement was more complex than originally thought. Thus began the long list of identity categorizations.
It would have been much easier if, instead of so many persons trying to explain/justify/criticize what they felt the candidate meant when he said he was not Indian, someone had simply asked the good gentleman what he really meant. That would have saved a great deal of debate.
In terms of the elections campaign, I am more interested in one identity than I am about the various other identities that persons want to own or disown. I am interested in the ideological identity of the various parties and groupings. This is what interests me the most.
The allegation has been made that the People’s Progressive Party is no longer a working class party. It has been described as a crony capitalist party. But what about the new APNU+AFC coalition, where does it stand on the ideological question?
If APNU+AFC is a capitalist coalition, then the main issue before the electorate is deciding which of the groupings contesting the elections is the better capitalist, the PPPC or the APNU+AFC coalition. Unfortunately, none of the political parties/groupings contesting this year’s elections has publicly declared its ideological orientation.
The PPPC is not expected to do so at this late stage. But it has a track record of free market achievements that it can point to and it is widely believed to be supported by the capitalist class in Guyana.
It is the AFC and APNU that are under the greater obligation to define their ideological leanings. For one, there has long been confusion about the ideological evolution of the PNC, the main party in APNU. Specifically, there is a need for that party, given its past, to come out and clarify just what is its ideological orientation. The party has never disowned the Declaration of Sophia. The party has gone through so many metamorphoses that there is need for it to now state just where it stands ideologically. The AFC, on the other hand, has always dodged the ideological question. It, therefore, also needs to define itself ideologically.
This issue is germane to pursuit of economic and social policies should the opposition coalition win the elections. APNU has criticized the government for widening the gap between the rich and the poor. It has said in the past that there is great inequality in Guyana and that it intends to address this inequality.
The question is how. What is going to be the approach of APNU to the issue of inequality? The inequality in Guyana is a structural phenomenon. In other words it is a product of how society is organized. In order to dismantle this inequality, there is going to be a need to pursue approaches that get to the root of structural inequality.
Inequality is a creature of the sort of economic programme is that is pursued. The nature of those programmes is in turn defined by the ideological orientation of those governing the country.
The neo-liberal model of development breeds structural inequality. APNU wants to reduce the inequality in the society, but it cannot do so by pursuing the same neo-liberal policies that the PPP has been pursuing, because it is known that such policies allow the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.
The defence offered for neo-liberal policies, however, is that they allow all ships to rise. So everyone is said to benefit, it’s just that some benefit more than others.
If this is precisely what APNU is seeking to avoid, then it has to state exactly how it intends to address the inequality question. In other words, it has to state what ideological approach it will adopt if elected. The worst thing that can happen for the supporters of APNU+AFC is for the coalition to win the elections, only for the supporters to find that nothing really changes when it comes to the distribution of income in Guyana. It would be a self-defeating.
The APNU+AFC coalition therefore needs to say just how it intends to reduce inequality. In so doing, the coalition cannot avoid addressing their ideological identity.