The spirit of Rodney will forever haunt the PNC
THERE has been two distinct periods in our history when we were very close in achieving the elusive national ethos of ‘ONE PEOPLE, ONE NATION, ONE DESTINY’ and both times the destroyer that thwarted the movement was the People’s National Congress (PNC).
I am referring firstly to the anti-colonial struggle for independence that created class and racial unity across the breadth of Guyana, the likes as was never seen before. The movement was founded by Dr. Jagan and generated mass mobilisation of the working class on a scale that was unprecedented in its magnitude and diversity. But, like day follows night, the PNC under its egotistical founder Forbes Burnham destroyed the racial and class unity with his obsession to be the leader. Today, the cleavages of that power struggle still embody itself in our politics to the point where our national motto becomes more elusive than ever. The second instance of achieving class and racial unity was the ‘Rodneyite’ rebellion against the PNC dictatorship. The period 1974 -1980 saw the unification of all the class forces in Guyana in the common goal of removing the PNC dictatorship. The inspirational and charismatic historian Dr Walter Rodney removed from the eyes of ordinary Guyanese the mystic and persona that Burnham as a petty dictator had created by his antics. Thousands of people of all persuasion, race, class and ethnicity flocked his meetings to hear his message of a united and free Guyana. Dr. Rodney preached a message of a racially tolerant Guyana, a just Guyana and an equal Guyana for all its sons and daughters. But Alas! True to form the PNC extinguished all of our hopes by the assassination of Rodney. I truly wonder when I see Roopnaine sitting on the same bench and on the same side of the house with the PNC what Walter would have thought of that. I still hear to this day the chants that intoned Rodney’s funeral procession: “If me nah bin come, me nah bin know, B…ham kill Rodney so, but a when me come ah then me know B…ham kill Rodney so.” The PNC withdrawal from the Commission of Inquiry was predictable given their role in his assassination and Walter’s spirit will live to haunt them today and in the future.
