Power to The People

14, Feb 2000
In last week's column we were at pains to establish two things:
(1) That these Caribbean island-societies have been in crisis for so long that the very concept and meaning of the very word "crisis" has little significance to us and so we continue to lose the opportunities inherent in the dynamics of social crisis and "chaos" to resolve the outstanding issues and the burning contradictions.
(2) That the struggles of the masses of people over time have clearly indicated, not so much by what they have articulated but definitely by what they have demonstrated, that their undying demand is for the broadest possible forms of democracy.

Given these two historic truisms our position is abundantly clear. Many political pundits see the "fall-out" between the ceremonial Head of State (the President) and the Executive (Panday) as a constitutional crisis that requires immediate constitutional reform, and if one is to accept that, then the next question should be who shall initiate such a process and how is it to be done.

The President legally cannot do it; all he can do is suggest to the Executive and the populace that such reform is at present appropriate. Other than that he can step out of bounds and begin to function "extra-legally" which then says that he has cast his fate into the breeze and the sky is the limit.

Panday as the head-honcho of the Executive, as with all such leaders in history, will not initiate reform that is geared to place limits on his otherwise extensive powers.

So logically, constitutional tinkering is never on unless the masses intervene, and whenever they do, constitutional tinkering is quickly thrown out the window and reform activity is transformed into the social explosion of a revolutionary situation.

Traditionally that is the problem that all political pundits who are mere reformers and thinkerers face and of which they are all, without exception, mortally afraid. They called for the "politics" but dare not initiate the mass mobilisations from below that are necessary to get the Executive to act in the interest of social development.

If only they can be guaranteed that the masses of people will behave and accede to the strict confines of the reform programme they envisage, then maybe they will muster the political will to engage the process. Otherwise as usual nothing will be done and all will await the coming of elections hopefully to vote out the incumbent Executive in exchange for another who may or may not accede to the demands for constitutional tinkering.

The first requirement is to accept that validation comes only from the masses below rather than from elites at the top or in the middle. In the past even in revolutionary situations when the self-organisations of the masses come to the fore and there exists actual dual power ie people's power as opposed to executive power of elite minorities the "politics" is diffused by the masses entrusting their power to the more articulate representative groups and bodies comprising professionals and intellectuals.

So every mass movement that came to the fore in our history, every major move by the masses of people that shut down the entire country, whether it was in 1919, 1936, 1946, 1970, 1976 and so on did not bring power to the people's self-organisations but power to some representative elitist party or group that eventually placed itself above as a dominant force over the people.

In the last two decades the people in their struggles in their communities and their work-sites have developed and demonstrated a keen distrust of "representatives".

In WASA at one point workers removed all representatives in a stance they deemed "no-nonsense bargaining" whereby they sought to get every worker in a said department involved directly in their negotiations. At the Testing Station they demanded that WASA administration find the room to accommodate all the workers therein at the same time and cut the haggling process to the very minimal.

In a similar vein, women workers at Trinidata in Macoya who occupied the factory when management was attempting to shift capital outlay to El Salvador, utilised similar strategies, distrusting representation, and sought to get government to facilitate them running and managing the plant which manufactured computer components.

The "Tello and Hunte" issue at the Orange Grove sugar factory attempted similar approaches. The People's Parliament that emerged out of the NJAC experience in 1970 led to the setting up of community and work-site Local Parliaments throughout the country that actually met and made decisions and sent reports to Woodford Square.

In 1976 it was the COSSABOs (Conference of Shop Stewards and Branch Officers) of all the progressive trade unions that decided in the height of that social explosion to form a political party to contest the elections. When the party was formed, the leaders of the party no longer saw any necessity for the COSSABOs. We alone argued differently, insisting that the party was only a strategic tool to bring power to a nationwide integrated network of people's self-organisations like the very COSSABOs.

We drew connection to what people have done here and how they have organised themselves from time immemorial whether in their "gayap"/ "len-hand" situations, in their "panchyats" and even their community "limes", to show that it was always the power of their self-organisations that brought them the confidence and the will to act decisively and that is these very self-organisations that must be empowered, if we are to make any fundamental difference. Enough said.

As we were writing this column, the news flash came that Kitchener had passed on. Also too, Syl Lowhar. With Johnny Issacs and Paul "Leslie" Harrison already gone, it certainly was a signal week for the passing of people-oriented personalities. Four in one fell swoop! Our condolences to all the aggrieved relatives. In time we shall have our full say.