Cheddi Jagan and the Politics of Power: British Guiana's Struggle for Independence

4. Imagining and Constructing a New Guiana

(  ) Imagining and Constructing a New Guiana In the report of its findings, the Robertson Commission was pessimistic about British Guiana’s potential for economic change. “We do not believe that there can ever be built up in British Guiana the El Dorado which the masses seem to believe can easily be obtained bya re-distribution of wealth: a countrycan only reach that standard of living which it can support by its own labour and its own natural resources,” it maintained. “British Guiana is deficient in the latter, and it must therefore depend all the more on the former.” The commissioners concluded: “We cannot but stress as main features the difficult and unpromising nature of the country: the undoubted dissatisfaction and ‘frustration’ of the people generally at their social and economic environment : and their desire for speedy changes and improvements.”1 Although the commission recognized that many Guianese people were frustrated with their economic condition, it felt compelled to remind them that their “labour” was the indispensable ingredient of their advancement. But the Guianese—at least those who were black and brown—were no strangers to unremitting toil. The problem was that their labor, often coerced and uncompensated, had benefited the colonial masters at their expense , a fact that constituted one of the fundamental bases of their nation- Imagining and Constructing a New Guiana (  ) alist struggle.This reality was evidently lost on the commission; hence its implied criticism of “the masses” and their expectations. The Robertson Commission, however, was not asked to report on social and economic conditions in the colony. Yet its members wisely concluded that “the economic and social environment in which a Constitution is to work is of relevance.”2 The commission was silent on the importance of the political climate to the successful operation of a constitution, a surprising omission since the Waddington Constitution had been an anachronism in a politicallychanging and maturing Guiana.TheWaddington Commission had recommended a constitution that reflected the fears of the elite in its checks and balances, rather than Guianese realities and projections for the future. As representatives of the Crown, the commission’s members crafted a constitution that granted the colonized people the promise of political power but not its reality. Rejecting the commissioners’ premise that the Guianese people were not ready for political autonomy and needed the continuing tutelage of the governor, the PPP was able to put the constitution’s weaknesses on full display while it held the reins of government. The Robertson Commission operated in a volatile political environment, one still reeling from the removal of the elected government by imperial fiat. The colony was consumed by the need to assign responsibility for that unprecedented political development, many blaming the PPP and others Governor Savage and the imperial government. When the commission began its deliberations in January 1954, the political wounds inflicted by the constitutional crisis were still raw; for many, the prospect of a return to power by the PPP produced fits of political apoplexy. Nevertheless, as we shall see, many Guianese had prescriptions for the path their country should pursue. The commission of 1954 undoubtedly was tempted to recommend a return to the somewhat authoritarian document that the Waddington Constitution replaced. But times had changed in British Guiana, as trade unionist Richard Ishmael forcefully told the commissioners: I beg to remind you that you must weigh and consider well the sources of all recommendations made to you, determine what interests those individuals or groups are serving. . . . For there are many who will come before your Commission, wolves dressed in sheep’s and patriot’s clothing, who have tested of the use and abuse of power and will attempt to recommend solutions which, if accepted, will result in a return of power to their hands, against the people’s will, and increase the bitterness in the hearts (  ) Imagining and Constructing a New Guiana and minds of the people. . . . The day when such people would have been able to get away with injustice is DEAD.3 The commission’s work was dominated and simultaneouslycircumscribed by the need to contain the PPP and to consign it to political oblivion. The white paper issued to justify the suspension of the 1953 constitution had proclaimed the PPP infected by communism, a conclusion that the commissioners seemed to accept uncritically and without further inquiry. Operating within the confines of this a priori conclusion, the commission was sympathetic to proposals to...