By Raffique Shah
July 17, 2024

It did not take me long last Friday night to switch gears, in a manner of writing, and focus this column on a politician to whom I owe at least an apology, Guyana President Dr Irfaan Ali. If he does get around to reading this, he will wonder why an apology from me: I haven’t written or said anything about this young man ever since he came to office in November 2020, and with good reason.

You see, Guyana’s politics is much like ours in Trinidad and Tobago when it comes to race because British colonisation of these two countries left us both with a volatile mix of populations—Africans and Indians—who came here as slaves and indentured labourers, respectively. The British deliberately did this to keep the Indians and Africans at each other’s throats when it comes to politics and the economy, jobs, contracts, etc.

Ever since control of the political reins were handed to the locals in the 1950s, there raged a battle between the Indians and the Afro Guyanese that was ten times more intense than anything we have experienced in T&T. There were riots, arson, murders and naked bullying.

Initially under the leadership of Dr Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham as his deputy, there was a semblance of unity. Their PPP (People’s Progressive Party) won sufficient seats and votes to govern the country. Bear in mind that this fiery struggle would erupt during the height of the Cold War between Russia and its communist allies worldwide, and on the other side, the US, Europe and all their usual allies.

The West stoked the fires of race—where it was barely a problem—into a full-fledged battle based on race, that they, Britain, with the authority to declare a public emergency, removed Jagan as Chief Minister, jailed, along with his main supporters.

Between the CIA and the British authorities who owned the colony, they enabled Burnham to form a rival party, the PNC (People’s National Congress), and by favouring the latter over the former, Jagan would be kept out of power for a long time even though his party, PPP, had a clear majority of votes. They over-manipulated the votes and changed the electoral system to proportional representation such that Burnham could barely cling to power but Jagan could be kept out of office.

I can go on and on about how the Americans joined with the British to ensure Jagan, a known Marxist, as was Burnham at one time, was kept from power by naked colonial force. For his entire life, even for a short period during which he won power in an unfair system, Jagan was kept at bay.

You see, youngsters like Irfaan—I ask His Excellency to excuse my familiarity, but Jagan and I were personal friends—must never forget their history, which to this day remains tainted by racism. Which is why when elections were held in 2020 under Bharrat Jagdeo’s leadership and the incumbent PNC-led government battled to retain power both on the streets and in the courts, I feared the worst for Guyana.

Therefore, when Irfaan Ali’s name cropped up, I didn’t know what to think. In fact, I didn’t know anything about him although his CV told of a bright young man with his several tertiary-level qualifications and he could speak with leadership authority. In my heart, I worried about his future and about the many Guyanese friends I have who are immune to the race “bogey”.

I have known, for example, Walter Rodney, whom I considered a friend, as were many others across the race divide with whom I maintain good relations. So, while I feared for Irfaan’s life, seeing that Rodney was blown apart by a bomb believed to have been planted on him by a Burnham operative, I had good reason to be afraid for the lives of others.

In 2020, too, Irfaan’s name and personality had not stamped itself on either the Guyanese people or friends of the country like me. The successor party to the PNC kept the coalition in court and watching over their shoulders backward, expecting bullets to bring them down any time. Moreover, there was Jagdeo’s shadow looming large over Irfaan’s, leaving the new president-elect a worried man.

And if he was worried, then people such as I would have been anxious, to say the least.

I thought, too, in 2020, that the new President would have a Herculean task removing the stamp of race that haunted his party and the fires of the said origin burning in Buxton, Berbice and elsewhere, among diehard Burnhamites.

President Ali literally brushed aside such fears among us observers and seems to have strengthened the racial unity that ought never to have been in Guyana or in T&T.

Indeed, he has developed into a near statesman, well respected in the Caribbean and elsewhere.

More on President Ali later.