This is the PPP manifesto.....

PPP manifesto part 2

Indians voting race - chicken and egg situation. We'll never know, buit the 1955 split was instructive. The Communist PPP was the home for a people who are instinctively anti-communist, the Indians.

Indeed the Hoyte Presidency, shrouded as it was in an undemocratic mandate, was indeed a positive from where the economy and society was.

Interesting comments Seignet.

If there were functioning local authorities with the ability to spend on their community these would be matters of local concern and get immediate attention of the local official accountable to the local people would catch hell.

The only reason the PPP maintains this paternal system....no patronage system is to maintain firm control of every aspect of the people's lives. One cannot build nationalism or community cohesion or pride in ones surroundings when one is dependent on a distant center for instructions on what to do or not to do. It is the reason our people never develop respect for how or where they live and would abide by the filth and disrespect to neighbors by dumping their trash everywhere that is not their home.

Outside of the energy sector can one really say that Trinidad's work force is really all that advanced?  They haven't had as complete a brain drain as has Guyana.  Like T&T many Guyanese talent has flown to the ABC nations, but then T&T benefits from immigration of professionals from other parts of CARICOM thanks to the new CSME freedom of movement for college grads.

T&T has a larger and more sophisticated economy because of its energy sector, which in turn has led to the development of sophisticated financial and construction and engineering sectors.  But I don't think that the skill levels of the average Trinidadian has been a draw for economic development. 

It is shocking what happens OUTSIDE of the energy sector, and indeed how low the wages are at the unskilled levels.  Shockingly the minimum wage is on par with islands like Grenada and St Lucia, and LOWER than islands like Barbados, Antigua and St Kitts!

I don't suggest that Guyana uses Trinidad as a role model in terms of how it is has developed its man power.  Trinidad has two faces.  Its advanced sectors (energy, finance and construction/engineering) and the rest.  Indeed it has a challenge in that its work force outside of these advanced sectors aren't highly skilled, nor productive, but demand the same returns for their labor as do those in these advanced sectors.  The result being labor shortages in a society with rampant unemployment, and under employment.

This was the conversation among the black middle class, after the bold facedly corrupt elections of 1973, and in the face of irrefutable evidence that the Burnham regime was transforming from being "democratic" to being blatantly dictatorial.

Having experienced bias (the use of the PPP party card) and racism directed against them by the JAGAN cabal, led by Janet Jagan in the 1960s, they justified what Burnham did.  Their attitude was that there were two evils that they had to contend with.

1. Tolerating a Burnham dictatorship

OR

2. Being driven into the sea by a racist (Janet) Jagan regime, which would have also morphed into a dictatorship given its open admiration for the USSR and Cuba, both brutal dictatorships. With the Indian vote THEN a majority obviously free and fair elections would have resulted in Indian rule.

Now imagine if this group had another option open to them? One that allowed them to vote their conscience and so to prevent the growing dictatorial tendencies of Burnham, without handing the country over to an Indo centric communist dictator named JANET JAGAN!

You will note that when Cheddi Jagan was alive Guyana moved to a quiet, even if tense political space. Blacks were willing to give him a chance. When he died and that Dragon Bytch Janet took over then it was all hell let loose.

Not chicken and egg, but the core of the problem.

Let us face facts.  There are differences in ethnic identity between Africans and Indians.  Africans have the open architecture model, given their history of slavery where the ethnic boundaries (Akan, Igbo, Kru) were removed and replaced by what was in the colonial era a highly stigmatized identity of being a "Negro".  Blacks lost all connection to Africa and indeed among the middle class especially, there was a strong level of contempt for things African.  The vast majority of miscegenation in Guyana has involved blacks, and the off spring have always been accepted by blacks if they chose to be.

No one in Guyana can tell you who is, and who isn't black, except for the darkest most negroid extremes.  I cite Trotman as an example.  He self identifies as mixed, and doesn't champion Afro Guyanese issues the way that Nigel Hughes does.  Both in the AFC.

With Indians it is different.  For what ever reason this group elected to maintain as it much as it could, its ancestral culture and ties to its homeland.  Indeed sharply more so than did their fellow indentures from Portugal and China. It sharply policed the boundaries of ethnicity by making intermarriage with other groups, especially blacks taboo.Also by refusing to allow their daughters especially into the schools during the colonial era, if that meant exposure to the mainly male African teachers, and to the Christianizing and Anglosization, which was then the mission of the educational system.  So in Guyana one is very clear about what is or isn't Indian.

Portuguese and Chinese integrated into that colonial cultural continuum of "Anglo through to Creole". The Chinese becoming Christians. Both becoming heavily miscegenated with other groups.  The Indians remained apart and indeed any mixing with blacks especially was taboo.  So they began to be seen as an inward "clannish" group by other groups, and especially by blacks with their highly flexible ethnic definitions.

So indeed one can argue that there are to sub cultures operating aide by side in coastal Guyana.  A Creole culture (which has absorbed some Indian influences, especially in food) and a modified "Indian" culture.

So Afro Guyanese view themselves as Guyanese who happen to be black, and a good many float between defining themselves as mixed and/or black, depending on the context.  They see Indo Guyanese as Indians who happen to be born in Guyana, but whose core loyalties are to their Indian identity. 

They then see this group as more numerous than are blacks.  Themselves divided as to who is black, who is sometimes black and sometimes mixed, and who is mixed, but maintaining some social ties to blacks, because blacks allow this. 

In the 1950s a real fear developed among he black middle class that the sharp upward mobility, which became possible for them in the post WWII era would be thwarted if some Indian dominated govt took over. Janet Jagan took over (using her husband as the titular leader) and in her vindictive way pushed blacks aside, preferring the rural Indian who she could better control.  Cheddi got the blame for that and a mindset developed among blacks that a PPP government meant the end of blacks.

Scroll forward to 2014 and we see that what might have been seen as paranoia is actually CORRECT.  The PPP has a goal of excluding blacks from every thing except for being used as props for vulgarity...note the back balling pics frequently posted here....using a few tokens to be used to hide this fact.

So no Kari Indian race voting isn't chicken and egg.  It played into the very paranoia which the black (and the colored) middle class had of them in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, hence their toleration for the wrongs which Burnham did in 1973.

Let us be honest when we discuss this, and not adopt the normal rant that caribny is a racist because he opens up the elephant in the room for all to see when most people wish it to remain hidden.

In 1838 when the Baboo-s arrived in British Guiana. Undue hardships prevailed for them-a carry over from the badass massa days on how he treated his African slaves. Licks and extortions were the order of the day. Even though the Africans were enslaved, upon emancipation they demonstrated exceptional qualities. They quickly organized themselves into village systems with management. Most importantly-they had CONSCIENCE.

And they reported to higher authorities the abuses meeted to the Cooolies. There was no drawn out struggles-there was immediate laws to address the ill-treatment.

So, as early as 1838, we had douglas in Vreed-en-hoop. The women enjoyed the mens company-and they were young men.

Later, coming accross the kala-pani women got raped by black and white sailors. And the records shows that the immigartion people couldn't do anything to stop the abuses. So, there must have been douglas then too.

Now, in the late 1940's I see in my village 3 indo women who living home wid black fellas. And I doan think anybody dare say anything about it. The women were happy, the men treated them good, they handed over dem money, the women cook, clean and and give the fellas a lil thing when dem want it. Indo men abuse their women back then -not all but it was problem. Their were douglas then too.

In the 1955 split, the Jagans launched the campaign to attack Forbes on all front. Afro doan take kindly to speak ill of their kin. For the Jagans foolishness, indo paid the price.

People lived good before the Jagans started this apaan jhat business.

 Siegnet,you are twisting the events of the split

 to your taste,go read the history of the events.

24 April 1953 - In the first general election under adult suffrage, the PPP won 18 of the 24 elected seats. "Crisis Week" followed this victory when in the General Council of the Party, Burnham demanded to be "leader or nothing". When he failed to have his way, he called a public meeting in Georgetown, against the wishes of the Party, to state his demands. However, the meeting broke up in disorder and he was forced to back down. It was only after this crisis was resolved that the Party was able to choose its Ministers

February 13,1955 - The PPP was split by Burnham and his supporters. The basis of the split, encouraged by the reactionary press and the Robertson Commission Report, was the prospect of new elections and the calculation that the splitters would take away majority support from the PPP. Burnham felt that he would carry with him the 5 seats in Georgetown and Lachmansingh the 8 seats in the sugar belt, thus gaining between them a majority of 13 of the 24. It was this calculation which culminated in a special, but irregular conference at the Metropole Cinema in Georgetown. Attempts to prevent this finally succeeded in converting the conference into one in which it was agreed that no elections could be held because it was not a regular conference of delegates. Burnham betrayed the agreement which he had signed and got one of his supporters to move a suspension of the standing orders to hold elections. It was at this point that the majority of the Executive Committee - Cheddi Jagan, Martin Carter, Rory Westmaas, George Robertson, Fred Bowman, Lionel Jeffrey and Janet Jagan - along with 200 floor members walked out. Burnham carried on his elections and then formed a new party, calling it at first the People's Progressive Party, but which he renamed the People's National Congress in 1957 after his defeat in the general elections.

August 1957 - General elections were held under a limited constitution. The PPP won 9 of the 14 seats, while Burnham's group won 3. Dr. Jagan was appointed Chief Minister. Shortly after, Burnham's group merged with John Carter's United Democratic Party and with Sydney King to form the People's National Congress (PNC).

Burnham was right to demand being leader, Jagan was no leader he was a follower and a poor one at that.

Straight out of The West on Trial. Great respect 4 u, but read other Afro Historians to get the missing information in CBJ book. Strange though, that Forbes never wrote anything about the Split and after the Split.

I suppose he had consolidated his power and din care. The West was with him. And for that Cheddie wanted to put the West on Trial.

Seignet.

Any direction to find the other side of

the events,when this took place in 53

i was not born.

Caribny I do note with interest your description of the political condition of the two major races in Guyana, but I must disagree with your characterization about the two labor market distinction in Trinidad and the leap from preserving culture to being oriented in politics to one's own race.

I don't have statistics to show the education level of Trinidadians - how much it is above that of Guyana and how much the median is a large part of the population rather than a duality of the energy sector (high-skill) and the non-energy (low-skill). But I can speak anecdotally because of family there and my visits, and the skill duality you speak of is something I would not place much significance t other than to say it deflects from the general theme of development and skill-set of the population. You seem determined to protect the PPP's legacy in the development of the populace's work ability, including literacy and numeracy, by focusing on Trinidad's non-energy skill level being as poor as some lesser Caribbean nations.

You went to great lengths to show how an open social infrastructure that informs the Black and also Portuguese and Chinese conditions, whereas the Indian is a closed one and that leads t its parochial race-based voting regardless of the performance of the party. You in essence sweep under the rug whatever fallibility the main opposition, PNC, has had to move beyond its own race base. I'm not even sure where the AFC dynamic fits into this commentary of yours.

Let us get real a quarrel between Burnham and Janet Jagan (I guess she was angry that she stopped getting her regular "strokes" from Fat Boy, because Cheddi wasn't able with a woman with her high libido) couldn't have created that rift which lasts 60 years later if there wasn't ongoing tension before.

It is a known fact that douglas were more accepted by blacks than they were by Indians, because blacks have a more flexible notion of their ethnicity than do Indians.  This is why the notion of "douglarization" has been seen by many Indians as a threat to them maintaining their ethnic identity.  You NEVER hear blacks making that claim.  Indeed many even view it as a solution.

Sydney king left the PPP AFTER Burnham.  Like many rural Africans he didn't trust Burnham with his "city slicker" ways.  He left when it became obvious to him that the PPP had become an Indo focused party once groups like the BGEIA joined.

In addition Burnham left with an Indian, who apparently thought that he had a lot pf support. So why do so many blame the racialization of politics on Burnham.  It was clear that Burnham, not being an idiot, saw a way to power through SPLITTING the Indian vote.  Not by thinking that he could win on the basis of the African vote alone.  

Remember that under the winner take all system, even if he won votes in places like Buxton, Golden Grove and BV, he still wouldn't have won those seats as there would have been more Indian votes.

The discussion on Trinidad has nothing to do with race as indeed the energy sector was traditionally the preserve of the blacks (many from Grenada and St Vincent) though Indians have become more involved.  In addition there are large swathes of rural Trinidad where low skills, and wages are the norm.  So my comments are addressed to the fact that Trinidad offers no lessons for Guyana in terms of improving the productivity of our workers.

In terms of their educational performance within CARICOM they are middle of the pack.  Indeed FEWER Trinidadians have post secondary education than Jamaicans (16% vs. 19%) and way behind Barbadians at 35%.  Their CXC performance is better than is Guyana's but is still mediocre by CARICOM standards.  But even Jamaica performs better than Guyana and they have never been known to offer high standard education beyond their elites.

Your typical Trinidadian ended their education at secondary school and we all know that these institutions within the Caribbean have failed to prepare people for the work force.  Their function is to equip the 10-35% (depending on which Caribbean country we refer to......Guyana as usual being at the bottom end) who will move on the tertiary level education.

What every CARICOM nations needs to do is to reshape the secondary school systems to be of value to those who will not receive tertiary education.

The facts are that our wages and the expectation of our people render us not able to compete based on wages, so they must based on skills.  But our people lack the skills.  Our people are highly exposed to living standards in the developed world, and identify with it.  They aren't like people in Africa and India who see those lives as too distant to be relative to their existence.

Guyana (and Jamaica) are too large to resort on gimmicks that the smaller islands engage in.....off shore universities...passports in exchange for resort investment...online gambling.  So we have to look at opportunities in other sectors. 

We might be able to snag some customer service opportunities from India as US and UK companies are having to on shore some functions which they previously off shored, because Indians lack an understanding of how westerners think.  But given that we will demand higher wages than the Indian equivalent, we will have to be more productive.

Other opportunities might exist in a more scientific type of farming which demands higher skills, innovation and mechanization.  Face it our people are no longer interested in being baked in the sun and then earn little.  In any case it is a global phenomenon that the average age for a farmer is 50, which means that in 15 years the world will be in serious trouble.  Guyana isn't an exception to this, so employment and business opportunities in farming will have to offer higher returns for the AVERAGE person engaged in this than they do today.  Indeed HIGHER than that offered in low end white collar occupations, given that it is more arduous, and risky.

The failure of the PPP (and that of EVERY other CARICOM gov't) can be pinned on them.  But then this is where APNU and the AFC come in.  What ideas do they have?  What plans to they have to radically transform the educational system to prepare students for the REAL world, thereby re-engaging boys. A huge problem throughout the Caricom is that boys are dropping out of education.  Indeed we are seeing an outsized % of the prizes going tp females.

Boys aren't like girls.  They don't follow orders or adapt to systems, unless they see what is in it for them.  It has become even more the case in the last 20 years because these age cohorts lack the "fear" of "big people" that those of us in our 50s remember quite well.

Kari the problem of how Indians are viewed by blacks came BEFORE the 70s.  Indeed we have seen (some thing that I didn't know) that Burnham left with a "major" Indian...Latchmansingh, who has been long forgotten by history. 

This answers the question that I have often wondered about.  Why did Burnham (who in the late 50s lacked the resources to rig) think that he could win when the Indian vote outnumbered the African vote? His base was limited to G/town, McKenzie, and maybe New Amsterdam.  The rural blacks being supported of Eusi Kwayana.  So Burnham didn't even have the African vote fully sewn up.  And under the constituency based system those African votes would have been "wasted" as the winner of the constituency (who ever won the Indian vote) was guaranteed victory.  That is unless the Indian vote was split.

So why does the narrative about Indian vs African distrust always revolve around Burnham?  Burnham had NOTHING to gain by seeing the Indian vote completely mobilized against him. Indeed is CHEDDI who could have benefitted as G/town, Linden and New Amsterdam had fewer seats than did the rural areas, so he could have given that away to Burnham. And Burnham wouldn't have won all the G/town seats either as the Portuguese, Chinese, and colored elites, and indeed many middle class blacks didn't like him.

So find another excuse for the racial rift.  Burnham isn't it.

And in addition you must address African perceptions of Indians.  The PNC is locked in a problem and that is that they cannot be seen to be pandering to the Indians.  Corbin was seen to be doing that and he was punished by the PNC receiving the fewest votes ever in 2006.

You will note that, even though the principle of ethnic rotation formulated by the AFC in 2006 means that an African should be the presidential candidate, no African has publicly mentioned that.  Only the PPP which is suddenly "concerned" about the exclusion of Africans from being the AFC candidate when the PPP themselves has never fielded an African.

This is because some are hoping that Indian "clannishness" works to split the Indian vote and thus remove the PPP from power.  The PPP themselves are afraid of this, hence their hope to raise African anxieties about the AFC. Many Africans have already decided that there are two "Indian" parties in Guyana, the PPP and the AFC, and they are fine with that.

Kind of like what Ross Perot did for Clinton, by splitting the conservative white vote.  But for him Clinton would never have been president. This is the role that some want the AFC to play.

Statistical analysis indicate that a reduction of certain taxes coupled by enforcement would have actually broaden the tax base by reducing incentives for going to the underground economy.  One single action should not be taken in isolation from the other actions.

For example, the high vat have spawned a vast contra-ban by which, in some cases, more than 50% of certain products reach the market outside of VAT.  The costs of running this business is high however, the VAT makes it viable.  The rough calculation showed a 5-6% reduction will cause major strain on the various middlemen causing the retailer margin to shrink thus giving no incentive to go contra-bad.

The VAT avoidance never benefited the end consumer as retailer have to mask with real prices or risk exposing themselves to inspectors.

This bridge was allowed to leff bruk so Buxton bandits don't get easy entry/exit from Indian villages.

I agree with baseman on that note. VAT should be and can be reduced if the collection of taxes is improved. The problem is the PPP is only interested in corruption morning noon and night they cannot get their shit together to figure out how to do even the basics.