Dear Editor,

It was with little surprise that I read that the PPP was finally giving lip service to the concept that as an executive it should be involved in a more inclusive form of governance. I have been making the point for over a year now that executive hubris notwithstanding, the election results of 2011 marked not a dip but a steady if gradual decline in the PPP’s grip on power, and that inevitably it would face the sort of precarity that has escaped it over the greater part of its over two decades in government. The natural development from that would be to try to reach out to form alliances. However, as Stabroek News informs us, this recognition of vulnerability did not come absent the usual arrogance:

“During the press briefing, Rohee stated that the National Democratic Front was a political framework that would advance democracy in Guyana through a partnership of Guyanese who were also committed to the party’s vision.”

I’m unsure as to what precisely this vision of the PPP is that people are expected to partner with; the only modification I have seen in Freedom House is that to its historical penchant for tribalism, the governing party has now added corruption and impunity, qualities that were rejected by many of its traditional supporters in 2011 yet which are on even more shameless display now.

The President’s refusal to act in the case of the NCN fraud is emblematic of the PPP’s attitude in this regard; of the two persons identified as allegedly culpable in this scandal, one now heads a PPP-aligned media outfit while up to last year the other was writing articles for the PPP’s official newspaper, the Mirror, including on, of all things, money laundering. Then there is the hypocrisy of secret deals with foreign companies designed essentially to strip Guyana of its natural resources even as the party plays lip service to democratic consultation and conscientious environmental stewardship.

The People’s Progressive Party is therefore in no way qualified to play a leadership role in any process that would, according to Mr Rohee, “see Guyanese electors benefiting significantly from higher levels of transparency, accountability, good governance and democratic rule.”   Freedom House is pretending to be looking for a new civic component when what it should be looking at is soul searching and internal reform and in a very public way.

There is a seismic shift in Guyana’s political landscape that is about to happen, something that Mr Rohee’s pronouncements indicate his party has a clear recognition of; but the change which that shift is signalling will not be led by politicians, particularly not those in the PPP who are benefiting most from the present state of dysfunction.

The shift will be led by a growing number of citizens recognizing both their rights and responsibilities as are afforded under the state and as enshrined in the constitution and other instruments.

Finally, while I commend former PPP government minister, Dr Henry Jeffrey, for intelligently articulating the need for constitutional reform and shared governance, we cannot speak about any democratic reforms or enhancements or modifications without speaking to the core issue that plagues us, that of our cultural differences, our perpetually reinforced othering of each other. Until Guyanese citizens can sit down at a table and speak honestly and openly about these divisions and about what is necessary to heal them, no system of government will work.

The ways in which we separate ourselves from ourselves are not new to the world. Albert Camus, in the midst of the conflict between the colonist French in Algeria (Camus was one) and the native Arabs, was reached out to by an Arab militant and publisher, Aziz Kessous. In his response (which Kessous published on the front page of the first edition of a paper he had founded), Camus writes:

“…you and I, who are so much alike – having the same background, sharing the same hope, having felt like brothers for so long now, united in our love for our country – we know that we are not enemies and that we could live happily together on this soil that belongs to us. For it is ours, and I can no more imagine it without you and your brothers than you can probably separate it from me and those who resemble me. You have said it very well, better than I can say it: we are condemned to live together.”

We in Guyana have been condemned by history to live together – it is time we take the steps, free from fear, free from tribalism, free from partisan politics, to turn what has so far been a perpetual sentence into a perpetual celebration. It will start by talking to each other, or as Camus put it in his letter to Kessous, “the essential thing is to leave room, however limited it may be, for the exchange of views that is still possible; the essential thing is to bring about an easing of the situation, however slight and temporary it may be.”

Yours faithfully,
Ruel Johnson