OPINION: Five observations about the WPA

Last Updated on Wednesday, 14 August 2024, 21:29 by Writer

By Dr. Randy Persaud, Professor Emeritus

The WPA has been around since the 1970s. In the early days it played a useful role in helping the PPP remove the authoritarian People’s National Congress. One of the WPA stalwarts, Dr. Walter Rodney, was assassinated by the state in June 1980. The COI into Rodney’s death directly pointed fingers at the then ruling PNC. With this background in mind, allow me to make five observations about the organization Rodney left behind.

Firstly, and most recently, the WPA just announced that it will contest the 2025 national elections in Guyana. They named a presidential candidate in David Hinds. What is notable about the announcement is that the WPA came off as warning the PNCR that it may entertain discussions about a coalition, but that the PNCR must understand the WPA means business, and will not be pushed around. Aubrey Norton must have had a bellyful of laughter at this vacuous rhetoric. The truth is the WPA cannot warn anyone because there is no political basis to back up the threat. If the WPA disappears, no one will know.

Secondly, and building off of the first point is that the WPA has never had more than a few hundred supporters, or perhaps a few thousand in its best days under Rodney. One of the reasons for this is that, by its own admission, the WPA has been a confusing bunch, not knowing for instance, if they are, or should be an electoral political party. This writer can clearly recall numerous big ones in the WPA explaining their lack of mass support on the basis that they are not a traditional political party.

Thirdly, while the old WPA was a progressive force in the tradition of the PPP, today it has become a decidedly reactionary and regressive bunch. If you want proof, just read what WPA people write in the letter sections of the traditional press and on social media platforms. You do not hear anything about the working class, or about uplifting all our people regardless of race, class, or religion. No. The only thing they talk about is race. Mind you, it would be perfectly okay to offer critiques of power, including racialized forms of power, if the basic protocols of theory and evidence were employed. That you do not have. Instead, you get wild claims about racial oppression. The WPA madness has got to the point where folks are admonished for buying black pudding from the “wrong” ethnicity!

Fourthly, the WPA must at some time clarify its ideology. In decades gone by, the WPA was solidly Marxist and anti-colonial. Like it or not, they had some perspective about the society, and about the nature of the international political economy. But not today. Further, some in the WPA want the descendants of indentured servants to pay the descendants of European slavery.

Fifthly and finally, in the old days the WPA (like the AFC) laid claim to being multiracial. The truth is that people from all ethnic sections liked Walter Rodney, this writer included. Back in the 1980s no less a figure than T. Ogunseye noted that the WPA was dedicated to “de-emphasizing race and emphasizing class.” Now, this same the WPA has descended into the pits by openly claiming to be the voice of only Guyanese of African descent. What happened? My own view is that the WPA converted itself in a race party because its incompetent leadership chased away most supporters. Today, the only issue Mr. Ogunseye writes about is race.

The WPA likes to accuse the PPPC of ethnic politics. Yet, in their own words, the WPA once vigorously affirmed that “Rodney and Jagan working together contributed to a growing sense of unity with trade unions and religious organizations.” On the other hand, if you read the COI into Walter Rodney’s assassination, you will find numerous references to the authoritarianism of the PNC(R), and what a control freak L.F.S. Burnham was during the era of serially rigged elections and party paramountcy. The WPA itself was indeed a victim of the PNC. Several of its members were either seriously injured or killed by thugs. Yet, simply because of the racial dynamic, the WPA is willing to abandon its sense of history, including its own history, in joining with the election-rigging APNU.

It is sad that the WPA has fallen to this level of ignominy. Perhaps this is because we are talking about only a handful of people, most with only vicarious connections to the grassroots, and almost all of them living overseas. What a sad ending!

Dr. Randy Persaud is an Adviser in the Office of the President.