In Chapter Fifteen of my work in progress, I speak about the rise of the autocratic government in Guyana in 1974. In my adopted country, we now face the possibility of re-electing a former President who promises to be a dictator only on Day One. He’s got lots of judicial protection in his favor. On July 1, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”

Without push-back from Britain and the United States, Guyana Prime Minister Forbes Burnham (1964-1980) consolidated his power through rigged general elections. For the American government, during the Cold War Era, the alternative leftist communist government was a definite no-no. Then, on December 14, 1974, as we the people prepared for the Christmas and year-end festivities, Comrade Leader Burnham declared his political party to be paramount above the State and all its institutions. That included the Courts and all pending cases against activists of the opposition parties. Burnham’s ruling political party and the State became interchangeable.

For those of us outside the corridors of power, our lives changed in unexpected ways. Churches that didn’t support the government’s agenda were viewed as enemies of the State. Any privileges the Catholic Church once held in the field of education were lost. Within three years following the declaration of the “paramountcy of the party,” my life was turned inside out.

Who knows what lies ahead for me and my sons should the framers of Mandate/Project 2025 have their way?

Chapter Fifteen: Paramountcy of the Ruling Party & Free Education for All

In the 1970s, during my semi-cloistered life in the religious community, Guyana’s social and political transformation rammed forward. After becoming a Cooperative Republic in 1970, Guyana joined the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of independent, developing nations. United in their desire for national self-determination, these governments rejected the tentacles of colonialism and imperialism. With a membership of 96 countries across Africa, Asia, and the Americas, including the Caribbean Region, they argued that the developing world should abstain from allying with either of the two superpowers at the time—the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)—then in the grip of a Cold War.

Our capital city was all abuzz in August 1972 when Prime Minister Forbes Burnham hosted the Conference of Foreign Ministers of Non-Aligned Countries. A monument with the busts of NAM’s four founders—Tito of Yugoslavia, Nasser of Egypt, Nehru of India, and Nkrumah of Ghana—erected in a prominent location in downtown Georgetown, stands as a reminder of that auspicious moment as a young nation. Together with fellow Guyanese, I shared the pride of making our mark on the world stage.

In our drive for self-determination, our government began nationalizing foreign-owned companies exploiting our natural resources. The bauxite industry became the first target with the takeover of Canadian operations in 1971, followed by that of the Americans in 1973.

During the 1973 general elections, our blossoming pride as a nation suffered a blow with cries of electoral fraud from the opposition parties. Allegations spread of the army’s tampering of several ballot boxes in the Berbice region where rice farmers, fishermen, and sugarcane cutters favored the leftist party of Cheddi Jagan. That year, Burnham’s cooperative socialist party won the elections with seventy percent of the votes. At the time, the nuns had no inkling of what lay ahead for us as a religious community and nation.

On December 14, 1974, at Plantation Sophia in Georgetown, Prime Minister Forbes Burnham declared the “paramountcy of the party.” The ruling People’s National Congress (PNC) and the State became interchangeable. All institutions of the State, including the courts, were to be considered agencies of the ruling PNC and subject to its control. The objectives of the ruling party became public policy. From thence forward, opposition groups—including those within the Catholic Church—operated within prescribed limits.

The Declaration of Sophia, as it became known, set out the premises upon which our socialist country would be based. Instead of the capitalist system of production of goods and services for individual profit, the gains of production would be applied to the use and service of we the people. Surpluses would be invested in development and providing services to all. What’s more, socialism would establish a classless or egalitarian society. How could the struggling working class oppose such noble goals? How could the Catholic Church?

To achieve this socialist ideal would require much more than taking control of our land, land use, natural resources, and major industries. We would also have to revolutionize our education system. The old colonial and capitalist values had to be eradicated. The Guyana National Service (GNS)—a paramilitary, public service organization formed earlier that year—would become part of the educational system. With separate units for children in primary (8-14 years) and secondary schools (12-18 years), and for young adults (18-25 years), GNS served as the means to promote the concept of the new Guyana man and woman and our role in nation-building. Participants engaged in more than military drills and public parades. Agricultural projects provided on-the-job training in cultivating black-eye, corn, cotton, legumes, and peanuts. Some GNS centers offered skills in breeding poultry, swine, and other livestock.

Starting in September 1975, tuition fees were abolished for pursuing a degree at the University of Guyana. That was good news for me, a final year 1975-1976 undergraduate. As we would soon learn, there was a catch. One year of National Service became a requirement for pursuing studies at the university. To receive our degrees, the graduating class of 1976 would have to complete only three months of National Service, since we had received only one year of free tuition. Together with about ten other graduates, I served my three months at the GNS recently acquired publishing center located in Georgetown. Our weekends were reserved for military drills, agricultural activities, and political indoctrination classes conducted at the Plantation Sophia Complex.

While there was an outcry among Indo-Guyanese families for their daughters’ safety at GNS outposts in Guyana’s Interior, the Christian churches feared that the socialist state would prohibit religious education in the schools. Comrade Leader Burnham did much more. In 1976, his government took over all schools owned and/or run by the Catholic Church and denominational churches. Education became free from kindergarten to university. What a difference that would have made for my mother who had labored for years to pay for our high school fees! More children from working-class families like mine could now have a secondary education and attend university, if desired.

Our lives as teaching nuns and priests changed overnight. We became public servants, subject to the policies and whims of the State. We were not alone. Our country’s largest industry and employer, the sugar industry, was the next industry to come under State control.

In 1976, after nationalizing two British-owned sugar estates the previous year, our socialist government went after the vast holdings of the Booker group of companies. So extensive were their interests, pre-independent Guyana was referred to as ‘Bookers Guiana.’ They wholly or partly owned the remaining nine sugar estates, controlled the bulk of the retail trade, engaged in shipbuilding, and produced rum and rubber. They manufactured eighty-five percent of Guyana’s sugar and accounted for forty percent of our exports. The government signed a compensation agreement with Bookers for G$102.5 million with payment over twenty years.

With nationalization of the sugar industry, the State replaced Bookers as our biggest employer. What was considered a good thing for our economy and development soon turned out to be a curse for working people. Simply criticizing Comrade Leader Burnham, the ruling party, or its policies could put you out of your job. Without your permission, contributions to the ruling party were deducted from your salary. The workers’ unions, offering protection against arbitrary dismissal and other abuses, soon came under fire. To gain control, the State infiltrated the workers’ unions and their governing body, the Trade Union Council, achieving its aim by 1980.

The privately owned media companies were not spared. Criticism of the leadership and the policies of the State were not tolerated. By 1974, Burnham’s ruling party had already gained control of our country’s three major newspapers. The only surviving independent newspapers were published by Jagan’s opposition labor party (daily) and the Catholic Church (once weekly). One of the two radio stations owned and controlled by a British firm was taken over in 1968. Though the other radio station was not bought until 1979, Burnham held strict control of the content they aired. In the seventies, Guyana did not have a TV network. We became a people under siege in an open prison.

Amidst our emergent socialist state, under the heavy hand of the paramount ruling party, arose a new opposition party—the Working People’s Alliance (WPA). In 1974, after teaching at the university in Tanzania and other African countries, Guyanese-born Walter Rodney returned home to take up an appointment as Professor of History at the University of Guyana. But our Comrade Leader used his influence to rescind the appointment. Thirty-two-year-old Rodney—a historian with a Ph.D. in African History, Pan-Africanist, and political activist—had already created waves in Jamaica for his work among the island’s poor and oppressed people. Unable to take up the position at the university, Rodney remained in Guyana and joined the newly formed WPA in a leadership position.

In September 1976, under this political landscape, I moved to Guyana’s remote Northwest Region to take up an appointment as the geography and art teacher at the Northwest Government Secondary School in Mabaruma, the government’s administrative center for the region. I would learn that eradicating our old colonial and capitalist values does not happen with a mere Declaration and its new code of conduct for party members. Instead, we replaced our former white masters with new masters. The abuse of men in power was still very much in evidence, as I describe in the following chapter of being sexually harassed by the District Education Officer of the Ministry of Education.