WHO told Terrence Campbell he knows anything at all about politics? He doesn’t, and in fact, his ignorance is oceanic. Is this the man that Nigel Hughes recommended to be the consensus candidate? When the PPP hears what Campbell said in reaction to David Hinds’ horrible, semi-civilised comments about African-Guyanese who gravitate to the PPP, then the PPP leadership will be more convinced that it will win in 2025. And indeed, with people like Terrence Campbell around, the PPP is assured of victory.

Here is what Campbell had to say about Hinds’ most sickening insult. Campbell intoned that he can understand where Hinds is coming from because Hinds was reacting to the government’s diabolical use of resources to win over ethnic communities. I have studied politics all my life. I am in my early 70s, and please forgive me for bragging when I write that I am educated and have been around Guyanese politics for over 55 years, yet I have never encountered such ignorance of politics.

Campbell uses the word “diabolical” several times. What is meant by a “government’s diabolical use of resources to win over ethnic communities?” Let’s get one thing clear before we further expose the bottomless ignorance of Campbell. David Hinds did not refer to what Campbell was saying. Hinds used simple and unambiguous grammar.

He believes that the African Guyanese must support African organisations and that Africans who go over to the PPP are betrayers and sycophants. I will refrain from mentioning the scatological vocabulary he employed to describe such Africans, though it was yard-fowl cuss-down semantics.

It was Dr. Clive Thomas, not Hinds (although Hinds would endorse what Thomas uttered) who, in reference to African Guyanese receiving resources from the government, opined that they are in danger of losing the value of their vote, and when that value is gone, it cannot be regained. For my analysis of this ignorance of Thomas, see my two columns – Wednesday, February 12, 2025, captioned, “This is how close Clive Thomas’s politics is to David Hinds’” and Thursday, February 27, 2025, headlined, “Thomas, Kwayana and Hinds: Any difference?”

So, what is the “diabolical use of resources to win over ethnic communities?” Whatever Campbell has in mind, he didn’t elaborate, and he cannot because if and when he does, his ignorance will show up all over Guyana. This columnist will now descend to the level of arrogance and teach Campbell some elementary notes on politics.
Society is essentially class-divided. Social classes confront each other over the relations of production. Class confrontation is dialectically inevitable because the dispossessed classes, particularly the proletariat and peasantry, and the middle class want state power to redirect the use of resources to elevate their position in the economy. In electoral contests, these classes have political parties that try to capture state resources for the empowerment of these classes.

A good description of how parties compete with each other based on class position is Tyrone Ferguson’s magnum opus, “To Survive Sensibly or Court Heroic Death: Management of Guyana’s Political Economy, 1965- 1985.” Ferguson argued that the coalition of the United Force and PNC was destined to implode because the United Force was shamelessly anti-working class and pro-capitalist.

When working class parties come to power, they redistribute state resources to assist the less endowed social classes while ensuring that the petty-bourgeoisie and the capitalist classes are allowed latitude to continue. This was the nature of the Cheddi Jagan government when the civic component was born in 1992. The Jagan presidency was a delicate co-existence between social classes.

When a country is a plural society in which ethnic communities overtake class rivalry, then resources are competed for by ethnic groups with class instincts fading in the background. Forbes Burnham wanted to dissolve the plural nature of Guyana and made serious efforts, which were defeated by his own lust for power.
A plural society does not have to be riveted with pessimistic zero-sum fights. Plural societies suffer from the same fate of class-driven countries – the fight for resources that are limited. The plural society and the class-divided society can experience an absence of tension that is likely to fade over time if the society overcomes the limitation of resources.

This is what happened in Norway with oil and in parts of Scandinavia. It could have happened with Burnham, but he was a megalomaniac. Cheddi Jagan did not live long to do it. Irfaan Ali is currently doing it. Ali is doing what Norway has done. Resources are being made available to classes and ethnic communities that are entitled to them. This is going to be the great legacy of Ali. To call such reaching out by President Ali to other ethnic communities as “diabolical use of resource” reveals an ignorant mind.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.