No man, or dare I say, woman, is perfect. But this man, despite his many imperfections, did more for me personally, than any other human being besides my mother and my wife. I will forever be extremely grateful.
In retrospect, and without the benefit of being in a position where I could have knowledge of all the variables or the mitigating circumstances under consideration, I have taken the principled position that, it would have been better for him to continue efforts to maintain the winning Coalition with the UF, than to have presided over rigged elections in Guyana. Sometimes, I wish I could have been in the room when that decision was made to try and convince him that there was another way, a better way. Not to attempt to overestimate the powers of my own ability to influence or persuade, but maybe, just maybe, the history of progressive Guyana might have been written a bit differently.
If I had his ear for just a bit longer, and as my own political maturity found further room for expansion, I would have tried to convince him to find a worthwhile accommodation for Dr. Walter Rodney. And just before he would have summoned his guards to show this unofficial godson the exit, I would have pled with him to sit down with Cheddi and Walter to try and achieve some form of national detente.
Earlier I referenced his many imperfections, but the guy, who don’t wear pajamas, did bestow on LFSB a combination of skills that most current day politicians would love to die for – – awesome vision of “a little nation that could,” great intellect, a great voice and the ability to use it like no other in recent memory. Despite his errant choice (at least in my perhaps ill-informed opinion) on how to avoid further tensions with the West vis-a-vis ideological direction and the question of Independence, he might still have “pulled it all off” and then the Cubana air disaster happened, and his anger could no longer be contained.
Just as Fidel was pushed into the arms of the then Soviet Union, LFSB had little natural choice but to take his leadership skills and influence into the non-aligned movement. “We shall be pawns of neither East nor West.”
LFSB and Guyana then came into sharper focus as the combined powers of the West were directed to ensure that Burnham’s socio-economic agenda and plans for Guyana could not succeed. To think of it, even if we had stumbled upon the discovery of our oil resources at that time, our country had less than a little chance of getting such oil to market.
So, his legacy continues to be incessantly hammered by those Guyanese, primarily of the Indo-ethnicity persuasion and/or political opposition, who experienced the largely imposed socio-economic hardship and the infringement of their democratic right to free and fair elections, even as some of them selectively ignore current violations of electoral integrity, public trust and average competence.
And as Guyana’s ship today continues to sail in a substantially unknown direction, I wish some young Guyanese, of any ethnic persuasion or better yet of all six races combined, would be bestowed with the better angels of LSFB, the academic brilliance of Rodney and the tireless commitment of Cheddi to Guyana’s development. Should Guyana be so lucky my unofficial godfather might very well be tempted to stop turning in his grave.
John Sumner
Fmr: YSM – Executive
Fmr: Member – RDC – Region 4
BA – UG, MA & Ph.D. Economics – Howard University
