North Korean Mass Games and Third Worldism in Guyana, 1980-1992 「鍛錬された民のみぞ国づくりに役立つ」ガイアナにおける北朝鮮のマスゲームと第三世界主義 1980-1992

Home , Arirang Mass Games, Forbes Burnham, Guyana Defence Force, Hamilton Green, Juche, Mass Games

'Only a disciplined people can build a nation': North Korean Mass Games and Third Worldism in Guyana, 1980-1992 「鍛錬された民のみぞ国づくりに役立つ」ガイアナにおける北朝鮮のマスゲームと第三世界主義 1980-1992

Moe Taylor

Abstract: As the 1970s drew to a close, Forbes appealing to a certain widespread longing Burnham (1923-85), Guyana's controversial within Guyanese culture for a more leader of 21 years, received Pyongyang's "disciplined" society. assistance in importing the North Korean tradition of Mass Games, establishing them as a major facet of the nation's cultural and political life during the 1980-92 period. The Introduction current study documents this episode in In the final months of 1979, while the Iran Guyanese history and seeks to explain why the hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Burnham regime prioritized such an Afghanistan dominated international headlines, experiment in a time of austerity and crisis, its the approximately 750,000 citizens of the South ideological foundations, and how Guyanese American republic of Guyana (formerly British interpreted and responded to Mass Games. Guiana) were informed by state-owned media I argue that the Burnham regime's enthusiasm about the coming arrival of a strange and for Mass Games can in large part be explained mysterious new thing called Mass Games, a by their adherence to a particular tradition of spectacle event that would be, according to one socialist thought which holds education and editorial, "the most magnificent in the history 1 culture as the foundation of development. of our country." It would require the While such a conception of socialism has roots mandatory participation of their children in in the early Soviet Union and, in the case of primary and secondary school, parents were Guyana, was greatly influenced by the North told, and would take place at the National Park Korean model, it was also shaped by local and auditorium on 23 February 1980 to regional contexts. commemorate the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Co-operative Republic, as part The deep aversion of parents to their children of the broader Mashramani celebrations losing class time to Mass Games training, along (Guyana's version of Carnival). It was with ethnic division and Indo-Guyanese hostility presented to Guyanese as both a performance, to the Afro-Guyanese dominated government in a spectacle, implying entertainment; but also as particular, proved the central obstacles to fundamentally educational in nature, a project widespread public support for the project. of the Ministry of Education whose primary Despite these contradictions, Mass Games, value lay in what it stood to offer the nation's which took on a local flavour distinct from its youth. It was also made clear that this event North Korean progenitor, did in fact resonate was the latest fruit of fraternal cooperation with those who believed in Burnham's promise between Guyana and the Democratic People's of a brighter, socialist future, while also Republic of Korea (DPRK), which had taken on

1 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF increasing importance in the life of the country leader of the People's National Congress during the last six years. It was the dawning of (PNC). A London-educated Afro-Guyanese a decade in which North Korean-style Mass lawyer and trade unionist, Burnham's political Games became a major facet of the cultural and career began with the anti-colonial and labour political life of Guyana, and it is this episode in struggles of the early 1950s in the then Cold War international relations the present recently established People's Progressive Party study seeks to document. More specifically this (PPP), led by the Indo-Guyanese dentist and article examines the ideological, political and fellow trade unionist, Cheddi Jagan. As the cultural factors which moved the rulingMarxist leanings of Jagan and other PPP People's National Congress (PNC) to import leaders stoked British and American fears and adapt North Korean Mass Games, and how about a communist takeover in the colony, Guyanese interpreted and responded to the Burnham led a breakaway faction that would state-driven experiment. become the PNC in 1957, positioning himself as a moderate socialist who would protect private Guyana, North Korea and the Burnham Era property and welcome foreign investment, in contrast to the supposedly Stalinist Jagan. Guyana is the sole English-speaking country in Guyana's electoral arena was torn along ethnic South America, bordering Venezuela, Brazil lines, with most Indo-Guyanese backing Jagan and Suriname on the northern coast but and most Afro-Guyanese following Burnham, culturally affiliated with the Anglophonewhile Washington decided the latter best Caribbean. First inhabited by indigenous served its agenda of curbing Soviet influence in Amerindian peoples, successive periods of the region. Covert intervention by the Central colonial rule by the Netherlands (1648-1814) Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the 1960s was and Britain (1814-1966) saw the arrival of instrumental in the PNC's ascension to power, slaves from Africa and indentured labourers a dark period marred by ethnic violence, from India, China and Portugal (in particular sabotage and labour unrest.3 Burnham was the island of Madeira), forging a pluralistic elected Premier in December 1964 in coalition society with six official ethnic groups. However with the right-wing United Force (UF), and modern society and politics would largely be became Prime Minister with Britain's granting shaped by the often troubled relations between of independence in May 1966. As Guyana the two largest communities: Indo-Guyanese, stepped into independent statehood, Burnham mostly Hindu with a sizable Muslim minority, inherited an underdeveloped plantation working the sugar estates and rice farms of the economy dominated by the production of sugar, rural coastland, and Afro-Guyanese,rice and bauxite for export, and a population predominantly Christian, concentrated in the deeply divided by years of communal strife. capital and employed primarily in the civil service, security forces, mining and urban work The first indication that the honeymoon force. Historically Indo-Guyanese constituted between Burnham and his American patrons the single largest group; by 1970 for example, would be short-lived came on 23 February they represented 51.4 percent of the1970, when, having shed his cumbersome population, with Afro-Guyanese constituting coalition partner in a rigged 1968 election, 30.6 percent.2 Burnham formally declared Guyana a "Co- operative Republic," and proclaimed a new The arrival of North Korean Mass Games in revolutionary course for the nation under an Guyana at the dawn of the 1980s was the latest official ideology he called "co-operative episode in the controversial 21-year reign of socialism." He vowed to "establish firmly and Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham (1923-85), irrevocably the co-operative as the means of

2 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF making the small man a real man4 and countries located in "America's backyard" changing, in a revolutionary fashion, the social against the politics of the Cold War and the and economic relationships to which we have Sino-Soviet rivalry. Traditionally, the Soviet been heir as part of pure monarchial legacy."5 Union recognized Burnham's opposition, the Like the Juche idea in North Korea, co- PPP, as the legitimate Marxist-Leninist party in operative socialism would be simultaneously Guyana. With Burnham's rise to power having articulated as the brainchild of the maximum been bankrolled by the CIA, and his routine leader and as an indigenous adaptation of condemnation of the "Soviet threat" during his Marxism-Leninism, based in Guyanese history opposition years, the Brezhnev administration and conditions.6 At its core was the principle of had plenty of reason to be sceptical. Moscow's self-reliance (primarily manifested in the reaction was to recognize Guyana as a nationalization of all foreign-owned enterprises "socialist-oriented" (rather than socialist) and the banning of imports deemedcountry, rejecting Burnham's bid to have the unessential), a multitude of ambitiousPNC admitted into the Communist educational and cultural reforms designed to International (reserving that honour for the create a "new man" free of colonial influences, PPP), and his request that Guyana be accepted and a programme, never fully realized, to build into the Council for Mutual Economic a new economic structure based on co-Assistance (COMECON),7 the economic operatives. In explaining this sudden shift to organization of socialist states. At the same the Left, the Comrade Leader (the formal title time, Moscow continued its fraternal relations Burnham adopted in the 1970s) maintained with Burnham's opposition, and offered that he had always been a Marxist, but had the scholarships to Guyanese students – not wisdom and tact to put ideology aside until he through formal government channels, but had secured independence for his country. through the PPP. By the late 1970s there was While there was some blowback fromthinly-veiled animosity between the two states, Washington, the PNC regime was spared the with the PNC charging Moscow with "flip- kind of overt American hostility received by flopping" on commitments of aid and of other Leftist states of the region in the same supporting a "fifth column" within Guyana.8 period; with the staunchly pro-Soviet PPP the only other serious contender for power,Cuba was a more constructive ally, and Burnham remained the lesser evil in the eyes of provided Guyana with substantial medical Washington throughout the Cold War. personnel, scholarships and military aid. However the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) Burnham's foreign policy priorities were had also traditionally been aligned with securing aid, favorable trade agreements and Burnham's opposition, and provided guerilla outside support in Guyana's territorial disputes training to PPP militants. Burnham grew with neighbors Venezuela and Suriname, frustrated with what was perceived as Fidel particularly the former, which historically Castro's unwelcome interest in influencing the claims two-thirds of Guyana's territory and was course of Guyana's "revolution," and in 1978 threatening military action in the period. As five Cuban diplomats were expelled for Burnham snubbed the Western powers which allegedly offering guerrilla training to members had once backed him as Guyana's best defence of the Working People's Alliance (WPA), against communism, he hoped to find an Guyana's second major Left opposition group.9 alternate source of support in the socialist bloc and Non-Aligned Movement. The outcome of In June of 1972 Guyana became the first these efforts presents an interesting case study country in the Commonwealth Caribbean to of what options existed for developingrecognize the People's Republic of China,

3 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF thereby accessing a vital market for Guyanese the Third World, and new sugar and bauxite and becoming the recipient economic and political ties to of substantial aid, most notably the advanced capitalist countries all construction of a textile mill and clay brick reflected a new global presence for factory in the mid-1970s. 10 However Beijing's the DPRK. Long a partisan of the policy in the region was cautious and socialist side in the global Cold pragmatic, unwilling to back insurgencies or War, Kim Il Sung presented his shore up Leftist governments under threat, and country in this decade as by the late 1970s it was drastically curtailing "nonaligned," and a model for aid to even its closest allies in the Third postcolonial nation-building.12 World.11 Moreover, in the context of the Sino- Soviet rivalry, Burnham's overtures towards China only exacerbated tensions with Moscow. While Pyongyang had begun reaching out to governments in Asia, the Middle East and Burnham was a zealous champion of the Non- Africa in the 1960s, it extended this activity Aligned Movement (NAM), hosting the 1972 into Latin America and the Caribbean with Non-Aligned Foreign Ministers Conference, an renewed vigour by the following decade.13 occasion he used to unveil a monument to Pyongyang succeeded in building a substantial movement founders Nasser, Nkrumah, Nehru base of support among the radical and non- and Titoin the capital. But as a coalition of aligned governments of Africa and the Middle developing nations facing their own economic East, but encountered more difficult terrain in difficulties, NAM could hardly be a source of Latin America and the Caribbean, where in the capital, nor could it be of much assistance in turbulent atmosphere of the Cold War potential the event of a military conflict with Venezuela. allies were few and their time in power often And like other Third World leaders, Burnham short. One notable exception was Cuba, and discovered that strident support for the "Arab North Korea established diplomatic relations cause" in international fora – which the PNC with it in August 1960. However while friendly took active part in – was not guaranteed to be cooperation between the two states existed, repaid in Middle Eastern oil dollars. there was a discernable distance as well, suggesting that the Cuban leadership's However, the PNC's foreign policy objectives commitment to Moscow, and North Korea's proved neatly compatible with those of another ambiguous position in the Sino-Soviet split, country eagerly seeking new allies on the placed certain limits on the potential of such a international stage in the same period: North partnership. Korea. The two states became natural allies as their respective representatives came face to North Korea's Third World diplomacy was in face via the Non-Alignment Movement in which large part an attempt to build international both took an active role. Charles Armstrong support for its geo-political objectives in the (2013) described this phase in North Korean Korean peninsula, and its strategy was not foreign policy thusly: unsuccessful: votes from Third World states made possible a number of political victories at 14 The 1970s were a decade of the United Nations in this period. Meanwhile unprecedented outward expansion Guyana under Burnham's leadership had for North Korea. Admission to gained a reputation for its outspoken support of several UN bodies, active lobbying radical causes worldwide – from the Palestinian at the UN General Assembly, a intifada to Basque separatism – and became successful diplomatic offensive in one of the most vocal advocates of North Korea

4 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF on the world stage. Guyana consistently In addition to the pragmatic need for aid and defended North Korea in international fora, diplomatic support, other factors drew the PNC hosted the first "Latin American-Caribbean to North Korea. In the prevailing atmosphere of Conference for the Independent and Peaceful Third Worldism, and the Black Power Reunification of Korea" in January 1979, and movement rocking the Caribbean of the 1970s, played a leading role in similar activities Soviet socialism had limited credibility; at the worldwide. same time, Maoism was not useful to a thoroughly urban-based ruling party encircled While for the Soviets and Cubans the PNC's by a hostile countryside. By contrast, Juche distance from orthodox Marxism-Leninism was seemed to perfectly reinforce the Burnham a flaw, diplomatic pronouncements from North brand, notably his obsession with self-reliance, Korea praised the fact that co-operativehis emotionally-tuned nationalism and his faith socialism, like Juche, was a "unique line" of a in the power of education and culture to national character, and furthermore one which transform concrete reality. North Korea's self- incorporated the self-reliance philosophy of identification as a member of the Third World, Kim Il Sung.15 Relatedly, it appears that and Kim Il Sung's emphasis on anti-imperialism idiosyncratic regimes like the PNC, lacking a and the attention he paid to issues facing post- firm commitment to the Soviets or Chinese, colonial states had a special appeal to the left- were attractive allies to Pyongyang because it wing of the PNC, as it did to other Third World allowed them the opportunity to play the radicals. By the 1970s North Korea had patron-mentor role so important to their recovered from the devastation of the Korean desired domestic and international image. If War, underwent rapid industrialization and the Soviets had Cuba and the Chinese had developed a seemingly robust economy; to the scores of Latin American and Caribbean Albania, North Korea could boast that Guyana activists, intellectuals and artists who made the was "carrying out socialist construction under pilgrimage, the grandeur of Pyongyang seemed the banner of the Juche idea created by the to offer proof that the so-called Third World great leader Comrade Kim Il-Sung."16 could in fact achieve rapid development through a socialist path.17

Forbes Burnham and Kim Il-Sung in State media coverage of the first Guyanese Pyongyang, late 1970s Mass Games in 1980

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The outcome of this diplomatic junction was Washington and the International Monetary roughly a decade of extensive political,Fund (IMF), and his ascension to power began economic, military and cultural relations the gradual decline of the North Korean between Guyana and North Koreapartnership in the 1985-92 period. The aborted unprecedented in the Western hemisphere. North Korean ventures included a small hydro- North Korea's extensive aid focused onelectric project in the north-west, a spare parts supporting the regime's goal of self-sufficiency factory capable of producing ten to fifteen tons in food; this included material gifts (e.g. annually, a gold mining operation in the tractors, harrows, boat motors), efforts to raise interior, a new national stadium in the capital the productivity of traditional food sectors such capable of seating 20,000, and a North Korean- as rice and fishing, as well as agricultural style "Students and Children's Palace." projects designed to introduce new crops Guyana had to otherwise import, such as Mass Games potatoes. North Korea also aided the PNC's desire to vastly expand its military capabilities - While Mass Games in North Korea were first particularly in the areas of artillery and naval observed by PNC leaders during the latter half warfare – in preparation for a potential conflict of the 1970s, they date back to the birth of the with Venezuela. Burnham's former vice-Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea president Hamilton Green has even alleged following liberation from Japanese rule in there were North Korean troops stationed August 1945. Although the historical along the Guyana-Venezuela border, prepared development of Mass Games is beyond the to impel any incursion,18 although such claims scope of this article, they have their roots in the have been vigorously disputed. Nevertheless, European group-gymnastics clubs of the North Korean agronomists, chemists,nineteenth-century, whose traditions were engineers, doctors and military officers, as well eventually adopted by socialist parties and as contingents of English students, become became part of the cultural sphere of the early guests in the country, as Juche study groups Soviet Union (see Nolte 2002, Stites 2009, popped up in every major city and town, and Burnett 2013, Frank 2013). It should be noted party members and civil servants werehowever that mass spectacle and mass implored to attend public rallies in solidarity mobilization were part of a broader zeitgeist of with their comrades in Asia. Culturalthe interwar period, appealing to ideologues collaboration flourished as well, as North and artists of both the Left and Right, and mass Korean and Guyanese artists, musicians and gymnastics displays made their appearance in a dancers engaged in state-sponsored exchanges, number of European countries. Their most collaborating and performing in bothrecent incarnation in North Korea commenced Pyongyang and Georgetown. North Korea's in 2002 under the formal name TheGrand Mass most substantial gifts in material termsGymnastics and Artistic Performance Arirang. included the construction of a glass factory at ("Arirang" is the title of a traditional folk song, Yarrowkabra and Guyana's first acupuncture which, through the metaphor of two separated clinic, staffed by North Koreans, in the capital; lovers, has become a kind of anthem of Korean however, several other projects werereunification).19 Today an Arirang performance announced or initiated only to be abandoned in North Korea involves approximately 100,000 following Burnham's death in 6 August 1985. performers, the bulk of them primary and Burnham's successor, Desmond Hoyte,middle school students, and typically takes representing the "right-wing" of the PNC, place annually in August through September in believed Guyana's long-term interests were Pyongyang's massive Rungnado May Day better served repairing its relationship with Stadium.20 They are without comparison the

6 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF largest choreographed performance in the Edwin James, Committee Secretary Jean world.21 Smith and Sim Sang Guk of the DPRK embassy. There are three central components to Mass Games: gymnastics, music, and the panoramic backdrop; however the gymnastics portion is Kim Jong-il, in his April 1987 speech "On supplemented with dance, singing, drama, and Furthering Mass Games Gymnastics," divides in recent years the entire performance has the value of Mass Games into three areas: its been enhanced with lasers and pyrotechnics. impact on the development of the children The gymnastics are mass group gymnastics, participating as performers, its impact on the whose dazzling effect is achieved through the "party members and workers" who constitute sheer number of bodies performing inthe audience, and its contribution to North 23 synchronized unity. The backdrop is created Korea's relations with foreign countries. through tens of thousands of children aligned Firstly, Mass Games plays an important role in in one side of the stadium seats holding books turning school children into "fully developed 24 of illustrated cards positioned contigously with communist people." His definition of such each other to give the illusion of an imperforate people merges the intellectual with the surface; by changing the pages of the book in physical, and contains echoes of the same precisely coordinated unison following the language used by nineteenth century European signals of a conductor, the backdrop image is advocates of mass gymnastics: "one must transformed throughout the performance. The acquire a revolutionary ideology, the entire spectacle is coordinated to thematic knowledge of many fields, rich cultural music, which according to Burnett (2013) can attainments and a healthy and strong 25 bring to mind, conversely, "a four-partphysique." While Mass Games are an excellent Christian-style hymn, military march, operatic way to "foster particularly healthy and strong 26 quasi-recitative, folk song, classical symphony physiques," they also install "a high degree of 27 or ballet, or Hollywood Golden Age film organization, discipline and collectivism," as score."22 the performance forces them to "make every effort to subordinate all their thoughts and actions to the collective."28 While participating in Mass Games helps mold school children to become ideal citizens, they also educate the adult audience, as a form of ideology- reinforcing entertainment: "they are a major means of firmly equipping the Party members and other working people with the Juche idea and of demonstrating the validity and vitality of our Party's lines and policies."29 They remind North Koreans of "the line and policy put forward by our Party on the basis of the Juche idea at each period and stage of the revolution, as well as the history and achievements of the The Guyana Committee for Solidarity and struggle of our Party and people to carry them Peace hosts an event for "Month ofout."30 And lastly, Kim Jong-il explains that by Solidarity with the DPRK," June 1980, at inviting foreigners to attend Mass Games, as the Guyana Mines Workers Union hall in well as working to assist other nations in Linden. Left to right: Committee President adapting Mass Games, North Korea's

7 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF international prestige is enhanced while "trust Andrew Morrison (1919-2004), a Jesuit, between our country and other countries is opposition activist and tireless critic of Mass deepened."31 Games, claimed that for the occasion the government imported eight tons of decorations Mass Games come to Guyana from North Korea, 100,000 balloons from North America and distributed 200,000 lapel buttons bearing Burnham's image.37

Initial efforts to recruit a prominent Guyanese artist to the position of artistic director were unsuccessful. Keith Agard, known as a devout member of the Nichiren Buddhist Soka Gakkai sect and for his Mandala-like paintings full of heady cosmic-mystical themes, politely declined the offer, as did the well-known abstract painter and draughtsman Dudley Charles; both were apprehensive over its highly structured format and political orientation. The North Korean Mass Games instructor Kim job went to George Simon, a Lokono Arawak Il Nam (far left) oversees Guyanesepainter and graphic artist who had once students preparing the backdrop for the studied fine art at the University of Portsmouth first Guyanese Mass Games in 1980. in England, at the time working as a lecturer at Guyana's E.R. Burrowes School of Art. Today a renowned painter (and archeologist) known for In September 1979 a seven-member team of his acrylic paintings steeped in Amerindian North Korean Mass Games instructors arrived folklore and spirituality, Simon may have at Guyana's Timehri International Airport. They seemed an unlikely candidate, but his were headed by visual artist Kim Il Nam, background in graphic art engendered an reported to have ten years of experience in 38 appreciation for the new medium. "I suppose I Mass Games training and personally selected took to it," Simon recalls, for the mission by Kim Il Sung himself.32 According to the Guyanese press, the group spent two months familiarizing themselves with …because as a printmaker, one Guyanese history and culture, touring schools, had to restrict oneself to get an factories, farms, historical sites, and Guyana's image on to print. If it was a famous Kaiteur Falls.33 This was followed by silkscreen print that one was three weeks of training school teachers, and preparing, one had to prepare the two and half months of training student drawings in a particular way to suit participants.34 During this final phase, the that technique. If it was lithograph, illustration work to create the panoramic then again, there is some backdrop went on eleven hours a day in restriction. And so it is with alternating shifts at the Sophia auditorium, intaglio printmaking. So it didn't while gymnasts and dancers trained five hours bother me. I understood that to a day with North Korean instructors and the make this work, and to make these well-known Guyanese performer Dawn drawings be dynamic, they had to Schultz.35 Burnham apparently visited often to be simple, yet it had to have the observe these preparations firsthand.36 Father punch that would make it a

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spectacle. Although the threatening remarks were never acted upon, it gives some impression of the authoritarian atmosphere in which the artists Following an apprenticeship period in which worked. Simon learned the new techniques from his North Korean teachers, the 50x80 centimeter As the state-owned media began hyping the boards that together constituted the panoramic event with much fanfare in the months leadings backdrop were painted by students from the up to Mashramani, many Guyanese were E.R. Burrowes School of Art under theapprehensive and somewhat confused, and supervision of Simon and the North Koreans.39 Burnham's opposition wasted no time in As artistic director, Simon also served as the concluding that Mass Games would "serve no conductor during the performances, who educational purpose but merely to divert directs the succession of backdrop images with attention from the general economic and social a series of coloured flags. situation of the country."44 The Working People's Alliance (WPA), a radical Left Appointed as musical director was Patricia opposition party led by the scholar Walter Cambridge, who had graduated from America's Rodney, called for parents and teachers to Boston Conservatory in 1975 and hadboycott the event. Nevertheless, Guyana's first previously worked for Guyana's Ministry of Mass Games went ahead on 23 February 1980, Culture. Cambridge describes her compositions with Burnham, the PNC senior leadership and for Mass Games as "eclectic in style to match foreign diplomats in attendance. Students from 40 the choreography and the overall storyline" different regions of the coastland were which included "some calypso-flavoredorganized into different chapters: West elements, folk songs, national songs, and Demerara students re-enacted Burnham's 41 marching music woven into the production." proclamation of the Co-operative Republic in This music in turn was performed by the 1970, while the five chapters handled by Guyana Police Forces Band aided by the City Georgetown students dealt with industry, School's Choir. agriculture, education, defense and the PNC's "Feed, Clothe and House" (FCH) campaign.45 How much creative freedom did people like Students from the east coast completed the George Simon and Patricia Cambridge have? book with a final chapter on Guyana's Both artists describe a process in which the international relations, the entire performance Ministry of Education deferred to theirtaking ninety minutes, as is standard in North judgement and vision in terms of design and Korea.46 composition; however they worked under the understanding that their output must reflect Needless to say, in a country with a population the themes and messages presented to them. of approximately 750,000, Guyanese Mass Their preliminary work needed to be approved Games did not approach the grandeur of those by the Minister of Education, who was tasked held in Pyongyang: at their peak they by the Party leadership with ensuringnevertheless included 3,000 student ideological pedigree, and "changes could be performers (780 of whom held the card-books required if anything was deemed ideologically which constituted the backdrop) drawn from incorrect."42 Simon also recalls one year when a twenty-six primary and secondary schools mishap in the performance made the grandiose (although a total of 10,000 students were said portrait of Burnham appear to have one eye to have been involved in an entire production) closed, sparking a call in one local newspaper and the backdrop changed sixty times that the artistic director be punished.43 (compared with 180 in a North Korean

9 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF production). If we accept media reports that The giant pictures segmented into tickets for the first Mass Games, which cost pages of books held aloft by three Guyana dollars, were completely sold out, hundreds of children, gymnastics we can roughly gauge the attendance, as the by further hundreds in the National Park's open-air auditorium seats foreground, the swirling rhythm of upwards of 10,500. In addition to the main gaily-coloured costumes and the event open to the public, there were three, free sense of pomp and circumstance subsequent performances for school children in which always accompanies the the following weeks, a practise that became unfurling of flags, all merged to standard. make the performance at the National Park a memorable one.

At a signal from a director perched in a box up in the north stand they turned the leaves and fashioned pictures relevant to honouring Prime Minister Forbes Burnham, economic independence, the development of agriculture, the welfare of the people, defending the Republic, holding high the banner of anti-imperialism and independence, and developing socialist education and culture.

There is little doubt that Mass Guyanese Mass Games, 1983 Games has instilled the children with discipline that would be hard to beat. For the most part, the the Although the state-owned media was compelled particpants moved as if they were to heap praise on the event, its coverage is all parts of one big machine useful for conveying an idea of the visual operated by a single operator."47 character of the performance. The journalist Raschid Osman, writing for the state-owned Chronicle, offered the following description: The state-controlled press made out Mass Games to be a magnificent success of tremendous historical importance, even while Mass Games came alive yesterday quietly acknowledging the "many criticisms" for thousands of Mash among the public.48 Mass Games continued [Mashramani] revellers, a throughout the 1980s, expanding in size and spectacular sweep of colour and sophistication under the direction of the pageantry and informed by a Ministry of Education's Mass Games precision that had to be seen to be Secretariat. The North Korean team stayed in believed. Viewed for the first time, Guyana for nine months, training staff from the Mass Games with their cinema-like Ministry of Education as Mass Games tableaux and seemingly endless instructors before departing with a lavish possibilities, prove to be just a bit farewell ceremony hosted by the PNC top brass awesome. at the National Cultural Centre.49 In addition to

10 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF the Republic Day performance at Georgetown's backdrops, as did the image of Kim Il Sung in National Park, additional annual performances North Korea. In general the tone was highly comparable in size were held in thenationalistic and echoed common PNC themes predominantly Indo-Guyanese region of Berbice of patriotism, education, unity, self-reliance, on the east coast, and the predominantly Afro- non-alignment, and international solidarity. Guyanese mining town of Linden, Guyana's Inter-ethnic unity and homage to the Guyanese second most populous town. The PNC boasted peoples' diverse points of ancestry was often that the former involved 2,600 studentemphasized by, for example, dancers from the performers from thirty-six schools and was respective communities appearing in attended by 40,000 local residents.50 By 1982 traditional dress. The celebration and Mass Games training was incorporated into the encouragement of youth was also a consistent public school system's year-round physical theme, reflecting the fact that it was this group education curriculum.51 By the mid-1980s, the who the event was seen as primarily serving. Guyanese military (Guyana Defence Force) The backdrops commonly depicted Guyana's were incorporated into the annualnatural beauty and wildlife, as well as typically performance, as were members of the Guyana socialist realist-style portrayals of "reality in its National Service (GNS, a compulsoryrevolutionary development" populated with paramilitary service program for youth). Local happy workers, students and scientists, all steel bands were also included in subsequent interwoven with standard political slogans such years, increasing the Caribbean flavour of the as "Produce or Perish," "National Unity for production. As for the WPA's boycott campaign, Prosperity" and "Practise the Virtues of Self- four months after the first Mass Games, party Reliance." Another common element was the leader and respected scholar Walter Rodney recital and visual representation of text from was killed by a bomb detonated in his car, in renowned Guyanese poets, such as Martin what is widely accepted to have been an Carter and A.J. Seymour (which was not assassination perpetrated by Burnham'swithout irony, as the former was an opposition security forces. It was a massive blow from supporter, beaten by PNC militants while which the party never fully recovered. participating in an anti-government rally in 1978). Generally speaking, Mass Games reflected a Guyanese aesthetic, more free in form and more cheerful than its North Korean progenitor. While an ideological factor was certainly paramount, and the tragic history of slavery and indentureship were sometimes invoked, these were blended with the temperament and rhythms of the Caribbean. The resulting performance was less bellicose, less militaristic, more light-hearted and internationalist; it lacked the solemnity and hard-hitting character of North Korean Mass Guyanese Mass Games, 1986 Games, leaning more towards a jovial patriotism. I asked Yolanda Marshall, a Guyanese writer and poet who performed in The content of Mass Games in Guyana reflected the 1986 Mass Games as a dancer, to watch a a distinctly Guyanese appropriation of the video recording of a contemporary North North Korean medium. The portrait of Forbes Korean performance and share her thoughts. Burnham played a central role in theShe commented:

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It is very similar, in terms of the Mid-way through the performance time was display cards and gymnastics etc. taken to declare Guyana's recognition of the Our Mass Games was like a well- United Nation's International Year of Shelter organized Carnival show. Bigger, for the Homeless(IYSH). brighter costumes, Caribbean music, dances etc. Our Mass The 1988 Mass Games, "Guyana – a Nation on Games resembled some type of an the Move" is particularly interesting, as it was African celebration from slavery based on Burnham's theory of Guyanese history with a mixture of militancy and as the natural and spontaneous impulse blending of cultures. I personally towards co-operative living, supressed under feel my Guyanese Mass Games was colonialism but emerging triumphant under the more fun, after all, most Guyanese leadership of the PNC. The performance begins love to dance to good music.52 in the colonial past with the harsh realities of slavery and indentured labour (not, interestingly, with Guyana's indigenous people, The following brief descriptions of a few Mass among whom Burnham had posited Guyana's Games performances offer examples of their original co-operative spirit). In the second general style and content. The 1985 Mass chapter, emancipation has been declared and Games, the last one before Burnham's death in free Africans, refusing to continue working on August of that year, was entitled "Youth – the plantations as wage-labourers, pool their participation and development for peace." It resources and establish communal villages was conceived as a tribute to the United sustained on agriculture and fishing. Nation's International Youth Year (IYY), and in Subsequent chapters portray the growth of addition to this overriding theme, relayed the Caribbean unity, the struggles of sugar workers story of the arrival of Guyana's six ethnic and the development of the trade union groups through settlement, slavery andmovement with Burnham, Jagan56 and Hubert indenture, and congratulated Burnham on the Critchlow57 as its guiding lights. This leads 53 occasion of his sixty-second birthday. The towards the achievement of independence, the 1986 Mass Games was entitled "Standing up proclamation of the Co-operative Republic in for Guyana," and its chapters were "in honour 1970, and concludes with Guyana's march into of the youth of Guyana, the centenarythe future in a final chapter entitled "Guyana – celebration of the Guyana Teachers Association Boldly Reaching out for Progress."58 and Guyana's eighteenth independence anniversary."54 Why did Guyana adopt Mass Games?

The 1987 Mass Games "Guyana – Oh Beautiful The period in which the Burnham regime Guyana" opened with a shower of praise for decided to embark on the ambitious and costly Burnham's successor, Desmond Hoyte, and a project of bringing Mass Games to Guyana was patriotic tribute to the Co-operative Republic. one of crisis and austerity. Despite its rhetoric The subsequent seven chapters were aof self-reliance, the PNC never succeeded in celebration of the nation's natural resources, substantially diversifying the country's narrow devoted in turn to flora, forestry, rivers, export base or outgrowing its dependency on mineral wealth, wildlife, Guyana's holiday foreign oil and other imports. Like most resorts and a concluding chapter extolling "the developing nations Guyana was hit hard by the beauty, firm spirit, determination and1973 oil crisis, whose effects were compounded resoluteness of the Guyanese people as they by mismanagement and corruption in the vastly continue to build a united and free country."55 expanded state sector and the punitive

12 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF measures of the United States, which cut aid see, which was much more ubiquitous in and blocked loans from the Inter-American Guyanese society, forging an intellectual bridge Development Bank.59 In 1978, a desperate between the two. "Discipline" became a meme Burnham turned to the IMF, which in return for that filled newspaper editorials, radio economic assistance demanded an end to broadcasts and official speeches in the period, subsidies and massive layoffs in the state while the government's "Self-Denial Month" sector, in effect forcing the PNC to punish its encouraged citizens to forfeit a portion of their base. A serious rise in crime, goods shortages, wages to the state, and volunteer work a flourishing black market, labour unrest and brigades were mobilized to aid the sugar mass outward migration were among the harvest. Typical were New Nation headlines symptoms. The majority of Indo-Guyanese, the throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, country's single largest ethnic group, remained always emblazoned in capital letters: "Every intransigently opposed to the regime, viewing it Citizen A Solider" (a variation of Leon Trotsky's as illegitimate and discriminatory, leading "every worker a soldier" slogan adopted during Burnham to routinely rig elections in order to the Russian Civil War), "Everyone Will Have To remain in power.60 Under threat, the PNC Work Harder," "Treat Unruly Behaviour unleashed its security forces and gangs of party Harshly," "The Importance Of Sacrifice To The militants on the opposition, and there were Nation," "Grow More Food Now," "Women several murders of opposition activists linked to Urged To Be Involved In Higher Productivity," the government.61 Like many radical regimes "Limers Turned Into Productive Citizens,"62 before them, the PNC leadership justified "Let's Talk About Indiscipline: at Work, at Play, authoritarian tactics (if not always publically) at Home, in School, in the Streets."63 on the grounds that "the revolution" required discipline and steadfastness: democracy was a For Burnham, the problem of consciousness in luxury they could not afford. Guyana left the PNC with the task of creating a "new man," of refashioning the minds of Also like other self-appointed vanguards before Guyanese with a new value system through them, the PNC leadership attributed Guyana's education and cultural revolution.64 This economic hardships and public discontent in decision to respond to the crisis with large part to the low levels of "consciousness" intensified education efforts was not an of the Guyanese masses, something which was, innovation, but the natural extension of in their analysis, the product of centuries of Burnham's long-held political thought. He had colonial rule. In the worldview presented always proclaimed that education was the through official organs, a citizen with "socialist cornerstone of his plans to transform society, consciousness" had full faith in the Party and and that constructing a new national culture was willing to work hard and sacrifice for the based on truly "Guyanese" values – which by betterment of the nation, exhibiting the virtues the 1970s were defined as one and the same as of "self-reliance" and "self-help," while those socialist values – was central to this process. still poisoned with "individualist consciousness" One PNC document of the 1970s entitled complained of daily hardships, craved foreign "Principles of Authority" defines the Party's role goods, thought only of their individual plight as "leading tasks of stimulating and and expected others to solve their problems for implementing that learning and unlearning, them. And while such ideas aboutthat education and re-education without which consciousness may have been a Leninist import transition [to socialism] will be impossible."65 unfamiliar in the discourse of ordinary people, in PNC rhetoric they were closely related to the The idea of implementing socialism through theme of "discipline," something, as we will education and cultural reinvention – and the

13 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF related fixation with discipline and efficiency – doctors and military officers who visited has its roots in the early Soviet Union, and can Guyana in this period - and asked themselves be seen, in different forms and to varying how they could reproduce the same ethos extents, in many socialist experiments of the among their own populace. twentieth century. However this tradition reached its pinnacle in North Korea, where The PNC's zeal for mass education also had Stalinist ideology merged with a Korean Caribbean and specifically Guyanese roots. philosophical tradition in which the perfection Tyrone Ferguson (1999) points out that in the of society depended on the perfection of the 1970s the centrality of education to building individual. Under Kim Il Sung's leadership socialism was a position shared by Burnham's North Korea developed an all-pervasive system chief rivals – the pro-Soviet PPP and the radical for the central control and regimentedLeft WPA.68 The idea that the people of the dissemination of ideas. The Great Leader called Caribbean, specifically the African majority, for a never ending war against unhealthy ideas had been impacted intellectually, culturally and and values, and placed special emphasis on the spiritually by slavery and colonialism, and that indoctrination of the young, as nursery school some process of mental emancipation was and kindergarten teachers were told that it was central to their struggle for a just society, was their "honorable revolutionary duty" to begin and remains a staple of Caribbean thought, and the process of "revolutionizing and working- ran through the currents of Caribbean Marxism classizing" the population.66 In the 1970s when and Black Power of the 1960s and 1970s. On North Korea was presenting itself as a model the other hand, belief in the central priority of for Third World development, Kim Il Sung's education and discipline is something deeply message for countries like Guyana was that rooted in Guyanese culture, and in its vision of cultural development and educational reform an enlightened vanguard leading a backward were of even greater importance for them, as populace out of darkness, the PNC leadership they faced the double burden of building the demonstrated certain unmistakable traits of the objective conditions of socialism and freeing Guyanese middle class.69 And while the PNC themselves from the psycho-cultural legacy of leadership did indeed draw from a mix of the colonialism. This required that thelower- and upper-middle class, an examination revolutionary state not only seize andof its Central Committee in any given year thoroughly revamp existing educationalreveals that the single most common institutions, but also forge a new national occupational background of its 31 members culture that could install a "noble, moral and were teachers and headmasters trained in the beautiful mental character" in the masses.67 tradition of the British colonial school system. PNC leaders, as well as delegations of Juche Many more were the sons and daughters of students, artists and journalists, wereteachers and headmasters, including Burnham frequently hosted in Pyongyang during the himself. The habits, values and mentality of this 1974-85 period, and the remarkableoccupational group – the importance of achievements they observed there – widely discipline, hierarchy and respect for authority, reported in the PNC press – vindicated the idea the paramount role of the educator in society – that the key to the socialist society they sought shaped their interpretation of the socialist lay in education and culture. Time and time project. It is only by understanding these local again, PNC officials marveled at theand regional contexts – in conjunction with "discipline," "dedication" and "loyalty" of the Third Worldism, the Cold War and the North Korean people – both those theyhistorical contradictions of socialism as a observed in Pyongyang, and the scores of development strategy – that we can fully skilled workers, technicians, agronomists, appreciate the appeal of the North Korean

14 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF model to the PNC leadership. This is the context in which the PNC leadership adopted Mass Games as the 1970s drew to a With North Korea as an inspiration and a close. By demanding the participation of all source of material support, the PNC undertook primary and secondary students, and its annual a massive overhaul and expansion of the occurrence involving nearly three months of education system, nationalizing all schools held training, it stood to have a broader and deeper in private hands and by religious groups and impact on the lives of Guyanese than any other decreeing education free from nursery to of the PNC's projects of educational and university. The total number of schools in cultural reform. On the eve of the first Mass Guyana increased from 432 in 1970 to 1214 by Games of February 1980, an editorial in the 1979,70 as Burnham declared his priority of state-owned Chronicle made its purpose clear: "revolutionising the formal education system, a process aimed at eradicating the old colonial We as a nation must pursue and capitalist values and introducing and discipline or we will certainly be 71 emphasizing new and relevant ones." unable to maximize our productive Throughout his reign ambitious educational efforts, and also raise the level of and cultural projects, many based on our productivity. We expect institutions and practises observed in North discipline to be an overriding Korea, remained Burnham's priority to the consideration in all avenues of point of obsession. As Guyana entered the society. And we expect discipline 1980s and its economy continued to decline in to be inculcated in the very young the face of global recession and a new hardline who are the nucleus of our stance from Washington's Reagan aspirations. Discipline of mind and administration, Burnham's zeal for mass body are the prerequisites for education only intensified. In fact, an inverse positive achievement and relationship existed between the two, as if development, not only of ourselves, Burnham was in a race to achieve the "new but the nation as a whole.73 man" before the "old man" lost patience with the hardship and deprivations of socialist However, Mass Games was about more than construction. Although he remained the Party's discipline. It was part of Burnham's broader unquestioned leader until his passing in August attempt to institutionalize a hegemonic master- 1985, Burnham was increasingly isolated narrative over Guyanese society. As mentioned, within the leadership in his fixation on costly Mass Games was established as part of the educational projects in a time of scarcity. In broader Mashramani celebrations, which take 1983, defending his decision to prioritize the place annually in February and function as creation of a new elite boarding school for the Guyana's equivalent of the Carnival celebrated nation's top seventy-two students when the at the same time across the Caribbean. country was bankrupt, Burnham stated: "The Originally hoping that it would come to eclipse eventual cost will run into several millions of Christmas in importance, Burnham established dollars. This will be found. It is a small price to Mashramani in 1970 by elevating the annual pay for preparing the younger generation to Afro-Guyanese carnival of the town of carry on the revolution to its ultimate goal and Mackenzie into a national celebration, 72 success." The President's College, as it was appropriating the title of a traditional Arawak called, said to be modeled on the Mangyongdae harvest festival. This project reflected Revolutionary School in Pyongyang, opened its Burnham's desire to replace the colonial legacy doors a few months after Burnham's passing. with a new, pan-ethnic and "co-operative"

15 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF culture with himself as universal figurehead. By There hundreds of children, in choosing the date of 23 February – the normal school-hours, twice a week anniversary of Burnham's proclamation of the are put through their boring and Co-operative Republic, three days after repetitive paces, soaked by rain, Burnham's birthday - it tied the national burnt by sun, shouted at, abused, celebration to Burnham's individual persona and threatened by a loud-mouthed and the broader PNC nation-building project. instructress, day by day being Even prior to Mass Games, the PNC established wound up to their futile task like the People's Parade as an integral component little, brow-beaten automatons.75 of Mashramani, where workers representing their trades and workplaces were encouraged – However, the discipline aspect of Mass Games some would argue coerced – to march in a was its least controversial. While the PNC's show of solidarity with their government. preoccupation with it may appear a Leninist Grand theatrical productions at the National import, it also reflected a widespread sentiment Cultural Centre to mark the Comrade Leader's within society at the time that indiscipline was birthday also became customary during the a major problem of contemporary society. same time each year. Mass Games then was Lamentations on lack of discipline - routinely part of a broader effort to politicize Carnival in expressed in letter columns and editorial Guyana, to place it in service of the Burnham sections of newspapers across the partisan personality cult, pulling it in the opposite divide - could refer to lazy and indifferent direction from the "ritual of inversion" that it is public servants, or absenteeism, corruption and commonly analyzed as constituting in the theft in the workplace – things the PNC could Caribbean. By attempting to fuse these attribute to a lack of socialist consciousness, concepts – the birth of Burnham, the birth of and which critics of the regime could blame on the Co-operative Republic, an idyllic pre- an allegedly bloated and dysfunctional state Columbian past, patriotism, socialism, loyalty sector created through socialism. Absent to the State - into a premiere nationalfathers, children born out of wedlock and the celebration, the PNC were attempting to create deterioration of the traditional family unit something fitting the description Stites gave to frequently entered discussions of societal the forms of mass spectacle which emerged in indiscipline, as did the supposed bad influence the early Soviet Union: "a kinesthetic exercise of Jamaican reggae music or violent films from of revolution, a massive performance ofHollywood and Hong Kong. It was also, of revolutionary values and myths that were to course, a problem of the youth, exhibited in 74 infuse the new society-in-the-making." delinquency, loitering, truancy, foul language, loud music, immodest dress, and lack of How did Guyanese respond to Massrespect for elders. In fact, the letter quoted Games? above was responded to by another reader who claimed her child was among those training for Not all Guyanese shared the PNC's enthusiasm Mass Games at Farnum Playing Field: for discipline, or accepted that the kind embodied in Mass Games stood to have any positive impact on their children's education or Are the children to be allowed to personal development. One letter to the editor kick and fight without being of the Stabroek News described students disciplined? Should they pelt dogs training for the 1989 Mass Games at the and cows and even pull sheep tails Farnum Playing Field in the Subryanville without being scolded? Must they district of Georgetown thusly: be allowed to behave like a pack of

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monkeys without being punished the school year. This concern was voiced by after trying to spoil the overall parents and teachers repeatedly from the effect of the presentation?76 inception of Mass Games in 1980 until its demise with the fall of the PNC in 1992. From the beginning the government attempted to Mass Games was also commonly derided as an assure parents that all lost class time would be exercise in "brainwashing" with questionable compensated for, but whether this was being educational value, and of course the debate adequately achieved remained an unsettled born of such charges unfolded predictably debate between supporters and critics. along partisan lines: what was education and Ironically, the same Guyanese cultural culture to an admirer of Burnham wasdisposition - especially strong within the middle propaganda and indoctrination to an opposition class - that places tremendous emphasis on the supporter. However this type of criticism of importance of education both explains, at least Mass Games was part of a broader frustration in part, the PNC's great enthusiasm for projects with a Burnham era phenomenon of mandatory like Mass Games, and the difficulty they had in participation in Party-controlled activities, getting parents to embrace it. whether forcing workers and students to attend political rallies, or conscripting citizens into That notwithstanding, parents' fears that their auxiliary organizations like the People's Militia children's education was suffering as a result of and the Guyana National Service (GNS). While Mass Games was also symptomatic of a broader parents and students typically based their public anxiety over the state of public views on Mass Games on the experience of education during the 1980s. The severe their children or students, liberal intellectuals economic turmoil of the decade meant that the and journalists critical of the regime often PNC was unable to adequately sustain the focused on the association with North Korea in greatly expanded system of universal free order to demonstrate its supposedly sinister education they had initiated in the 1970s, and purpose: qualified teachers were among the mass exodus of educated Guyanese taking place at the time. It is robot-like. This, however, does Common complaints from parents and teachers not necessarily mean that it is were of crumbling facilities, poor salaries, without a purpose. North Korean overcrowded classrooms, unqualified teachers, instructors were brought here "political" appointments and dismissals, and because they were "experts" in this shortages of textbooks and materials. type of exercise. Why? Is it Naturally, in these circumstances it was easy because the political culture of for Guyanese to question the time and that country has gone further, resources being devoted to Mass Games. "The perhaps, than any other in the collapse of the education system" became a deliberate and relentless major theme of the government's opposition, destruction of human and one which it could link to the PNC's overall individuality?77 handling of the economy and its unpopular decision to accept IMF loan programs.

It is clear, however, that the greatest obstacle The other central obstacle to achieving public to Mass Games gaining popular support was support for Mass Games lay in the complicated the widespread fear of parents that their intersection of race and politics in Guyanese children's education was suffering due to the society. Generally speaking, most Indo- training which occupied nearly three months of Guyanese loathed Burnham, and viewed PNC

17 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF rule as an illegitimate racial dictatorship in denied women independence in relationships, which their community was excluded, silenced Guyana's deeply partisan political culture and and neglected. While Burnham's handling of anti-African racism. Regardless, what is clear is "the race issue" in Guyana is beyond the scope that Guyana's deep-rooted ethnic division, and of this article, suffice it to say that the PNC had Indo-Guyanese mistrust of the government in an enthusiasm for programs which took young particular, was a major barrier to gaining Guyanese out of their neighborhood or village widespread acceptance of Mass Games. and placed them in new, Party-controlled environments where they would interact with In late 1988, simmering public discontent over youth of other ethnic groups and from different Mass Games erupted into a fiery debate carried regions while being exposed to PNC ideology. out through the newspapers and radio. Central In addition to Mass Games, the central project to this dialogue was Stabroek News, founded designed to achieve this was Guyana National two years earlier and the first independent Service (GNS), in which all citizens were daily newspaper to arise since the PNC's required to spend one year in military-style nationalization of the country's media industry settlements in the hinterland engaged in basic in the 1970s. This public discourse over Mass combat training, agriculture andGames, like the rise of Stabroek News itself, manufacturing, in order that that they might was symptomatic of the gradual liberalization – 78 what was sometimes referred to as "Guyana's become "truly Guyanese citizens." glasnost" – occurring under Burnham's In the 28 years of PNC rule, possibly no other successor, Hoyte. policy generated as much fear and resentment One of the first major initiatives was within the Indo-Guyanese community as GNS undertaken by the distinguished poet and did. Most Indo-Guyanese parents were novelist Ian McDonald, who launched an attack mortified at the idea of their children – on Mass Games on the radio program particularly their daughters – being taken from Viewpoint. In addition to reiterating the their homes and sent to remote camps where common complaint about the students' loss of they would have little protection or recourse class time, he argued that Mass Games was against potential abuses by Afro-Guyanese desperately out of sync with Guyanese culture: soldiers, all in order to serve the agenda of a regime they despised. Moreover, over time, stories began to circulate within the Indo- There may at first have been Guyanese community of daughters returning nothing wrong in at least trying a home from GNS pregnant, giving birth to kind of exercise that produced "dugla pickney" (children of mixed Indian and such spectacular and colorful African ethnicity); graver still, reports of sexual examples of mass popular assaults and rapes emerged. While Mass discipline in other countries. Games was not as threatening as GNS in this Nothing wrong with regard, similar stories of sexual assaults of girls experimenting. But the simple during Mass Games training emerged as well. truth is that Guyana is not North Like so many issues in Guyanese politics, it is Korea and it is surely obvious by impossible to draw a neat line between a very now that the idea has not travelled real and serious problem (sexual violence well. It is not for us. It does not fit against young women, whose victims and our psyche. The attempt to enforce perpetrators are not limited to any ethnic mass discipline and call it fun does group), a traditional, patriarchal view of gender not suit our temperament, our within the Indo-Guyanese community which traditions, or our deepest

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inclinations. Let us admire the from drawing upon the cultural massed phalanxes of North Korean heritage of the world to stimulate children as they wave and smile and enrich our own cultural and dip and move and gyrate in development."83 strict unison. But let us admire from afar.79 Moreover, New Nation attempted to counter the image of Mass Games as something radical McDonald's editorial set off a flurry ofand distinctly North Korean by grouping it with responses and rebuttals in the letter sections other forms of mass spectacle found worldwide: and op-ed columns of newspapers and on public radio, and the North Korean embassy protested to the management of the Guyana Broadcasting Surely, [McDonald] would have Corporation (GBC). One of the most virulent seen on his TV monitor the replies to McDonald was a front-page editorial marvelous exhibition put on by the in the PNC party organ New Nation entitled South Koreans for the Summer "Mass Games and McDonald's Quackery." The Olympic Games in Seoul. And did anonymous piece claimed that McDonald's he not see a similar kind of "class prejudice" and "emotionalism" prevented spectacle put on by the Canadians him from appreciating Mass Games, and for the Winter Games in Calgary? accused him of defaming school teachers, He has never seen, or read or 80 demanding a "gentlemanly retraction." The heard of similar kinds of shows in editorial questioned whether McDonald had the USA? These cultural even seen a Mass Games performance, and manifestations are found in one suggested that in choosing such negative form or another, under one name phrases to describe the event, he "had no or another in many countries in the regard for meaning and was merely engaging world with different social 81 in an illicit sexual encounter with words." It systems.84 further argued that anyone who attended a Mass Games performance could see clearly the "great creativity and the joyous enthusiasm Additional rebuttals to McDonald put forward with which the children perform,"82 and that other arguments in support of Mass Games, for although North Korean in origin, they had example, that it improved children's academic become something thoroughly Guyanese: performance, and that it was on its way to becoming an internationally recognized sport, on par with football or cricket, in which Guyana It is true that we have been taught stood to excel and produce world champions.85 the techniques of Mass Games by The latter suggestion was not so far-fetched in the North Koreans. But we have developed our own style and our the Cold War 1980s, as several of North own approach to organization and Korea's allies were staging Mass Games, choreography. There is nothing including Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, East North Korean about the spirit of Germany, Ethiopia and Tanzania. Meanwhile as our Games. They have a distinctive the exchange continued critical parents and Guyanese flavor. teachers began to coalesce around the demand that the government produce data that proved …We must beware of any kind of Mass Games had any tangible benefits for the idiotic mind-set that prevents us student participants.

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Ian McDonald shot back at his critics on the time of severe economic and political crisis, to following episode of Viewpoint. He argued that divert considerable state resources in order to Mass Games, in its exclusion of individual force Mass Games on a wary public, followed achievement, and its "mechanical, utterly the logic of Burnham's ideological convictions. unalterable discipline"86 made it incomparable Burnham subscribed to a particular strain of to the great sports such as football or cricket; socialist thought which essentially inverts there could be no Rohan Kanhai or Michael Marx's concept of substructure and Jordan of Mass Games, as some of his critics superstructure, arguing economic development had suggested. Likewise, the comparison to the is dependent on the proper transformation of Seoul Olympics or Canadian Winter Games was peoples' ideas and values, therefore making weak: radical, ambitious educational and cultural projects like Mass Games a central priority of the regime. In this, Burnham inherited a Do Canada and South Korea have tendency within the Marxist-Leninist tradition Mass Games enshrined in their which dates back to the Russian Revolution, school curricula from the earliest but which reached its most extreme form in the age? There is a difference after all North Korea of Kim Il Sung, presenting a model between the occasionally staged from which Burnham and other PNC leaders grand military parade which took inspiration. Such a strategy of socialist everyone can enjoy and military development, however, also had antecedents in marching up and down as a way of Caribbean leftist thought, particularly the idea life.87 that the people of the Caribbean needed to break the "mental chains" of colonialism as a Perhaps aiming for compromise, McDonald prerequisite to building the new society. toned down his earlier calls for Mass Games to Moreover it appealed to the large number of be abolished, instead proposing it be reduced teaching professionals within the PNC to one performance every three years, that leadership, to a certain elitism typical of the children under twelve participate less and the Guyanese middle class, and a more ubiquitous youngest children be exempted altogether, to Guyanese cultural sensibility which places make children's' participation dependent on tremendous importance on formal education. parental consent, and to ensure student class Ironically, the latter was also a chief obstacle to time was not compromised.88 History, however, Guyanese embracing Mass Games, as parents would favour McDonald's original demand, proved unable to happily accept their children when four years later Burnham's successor losing class time during the nearly three Desmond Hoyte allowed the first free elections months of training each year. This, along with in Guyana since 1964, and the PNC was swept Guyana's historical ethnic divide and in out of office, bringing an abrupt end to its particular Indo-Guyanese intransigence twenty-eight-year reign. The new Indo-towards the government, were the primary Guyanese-based PPP administration began a factors preventing widespread public dramatic reversal of course in Guyana, Mass acceptance of Mass Games. Games was discontinued, and efforts were taken to extirpate all trace of its twelve-year Ian McDonald's argument that Mass Games, legacy. with its rigid collectivism, discipline, uniformity and leader-worship, was simply incompatible Conclusion with Guyanese cultural sensibilities, certainly hits upon a certain truth. To many Guyanese The PNC's decision at the end of the 1970s, in a living under the PNC, the array of communist-

20 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF style trappings introduced – the propaganda perspectives and opinions among former billboards urging Guyanese to work harder and performers vary, it is fair to say that many, produce more, the giant portraits of the quite possibly a majority, remember the Comrade Leader, people addressing one experience in a positive light. The explanations another as "comrade" – always seemed like an as to why are not complex – Mass Games was alien import, hastily forced into a society in fun, and it offered relief from the standard which they did not belong. Even some former routine of the classroom. A kind of nostalgia PNC officials today concede that the attempt to market within the Guyanese diaspora has institutionalize a Burnham personality cult was emerged, with people sharing their stories of grossly at odds with Caribbean politicalparticipating in Mass Games via online forums culture, in which leaders are viewed as quite and social media. Dr. Prince Inniss, a ordinary people by a cynical public, and, as sociologist at Saint Leo University in Florida, Burnham's vice-president Hamilton Green has shared her childhood recollections as a remarked, "we cuss them when the time Mass Games participant for the blog Everyday comes."89 There seems an insurmountable Sociology. Yolanda Marshall, a poet and writer distance between the Kimist aesthetic of North based in Toronto, has written an in-depth Korea and the uninhibited, organic character of account of her experience as a dancer in the Caribbean art; likewise, familiar clichés about 1986 Mass Games, an event that remains for the easy-going tempo of Caribbean life seem a her a cherished piece of her childhood. world removed from the Stakhanovite rhetoric Interestingly, rarely do former participants of discipline and efficiency introduced by the remember the experience as indoctrination or PNC. "brainwashing," and many are unaware that there was any political or ideological purpose On the other hand, it is important to remember to the event at all. What they remember is a that those libertine and lackadaisical elements celebration, a performance; the physicality and that colour popular stereotypes of theemotion, bodies, sounds, images, colours, Caribbean – the wild abandon of Carnival, the anticipation, excitement. This, coupled with the vulgar lyrics of calypso and reggae music, the fact that among former performers a positive vices of rum and marijuana – mask another side memory of Mass Games does not necessarily of Caribbean life, one much more conservative, correlate to positive sentiment towards which holds firm the virtues of modesty, Burnham or the PNC, suggests that Burnham etiquette, hard work, eloquence, education, may have vastly overestimated what his project sobriety and piety. In Guyana, and throughout would achieve. It also, however, lends credence the Anglo-Caribbean, these two currents co- to the arguments sometimes put forward by the exist in constant tension, and the PNC were PNC that Mass Games was not something quite in tune with the public mood in their radical or extreme, that it was no less constant agonizing over the "indiscipline" seen authoritarian or propagandistic than other as plaguing society. It is in this way that the forms of mass spectacle seen in the Western PNC project of remolding people into a more democracies, and that it was generally enjoyed disciplined, educated, civic-minded bodyby the young performers. resonated with many Guyanese. Can it be said that the seven-member team of While Guyanese people today remain divided North Korean artists who spent a year in on the legacy of Mass Games, its image has Guyana imparting the artistic techniques of actually improved with the passage of time, as Mass Games have had a lasting influence on student performers have grown up and begun the world of Guyanese art? It is a worthy to share their experiences. Althoughquestion. George Simon went on to become one

21 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF of Guyana's most prominent artists, his acrylic Moe Taylor is a writer and documentary paintings on canvas, paper andtwill fabric filmmaker living in Toronto. He holds an MA in gaining him international recognition, including Latin American and Caribbean studies from the Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Award for Columbia University. Excellence in 2012. Citing Mass Games as a pivotal chapter in his development as an artist, Recommended citation: Moe Taylor, 'Only a he continues to use the method of painting disciplined people can build a nation': North while sitting cross-legged on the floor, as his Korean Mass Games and Third Worldism in North Koreans teachers did, and theGuyana, 1980-1992, The Asia-Pacific Journal techniques of large-scale painting allowed him Vol 13, Issue 4, No.2, January 26, 2015. to later transition into the medium of mural art, Related articles which today includes some of his best known 90 work. Today these skills have been passed on •Rudiger Frank, The Arirang Mass Games to a new generation, as Simon has continued in of North Korea his role as teacher and dedicated himself to fostering young talent, particularly within the Notes Amerindian community, an effort that has given birth to a virtual renaissance of indigenous 1 "Mass Games will be stupendous affair," New peoples' art in Guyana. Critically acclaimed Nation, 27 January 1980. murals by Simon and his students now adorn a 2 number of prominent public sites, including the George K. Danns, Domination and Power in National Cultural Centre Universal( Woman, Guyana: A Study of the Police in a Third World 2008) the Umana YanaThe ( Spiritual Context (New Brunswick, USA and London: Connection Between Man and Nature, 2008) Transaction Books, 1982) 108. and the University of Guyana Palace( of the 3 Peacock: Homage to Wilson Harris, 2009). Ralph R. Premdas, "Guyana: socialism and destabilization in the Western hemisphere," To North Korea watchers, on the other hand, Caribbean Quarterly Vol. 25, No. 3, Social the story of Guyana's adoption of Mass Games Change (September 1979): 25-43. remains a lens into the shifting perspective 4 with which the secretive regime views the Italics in the original. outside world, and its own place within it. The 5 Forbes Burnham,A Destiny to Mould: decade in which Mass Games was a major facet Selected Discourses by the Prime Minister of of Guyanese cultural and political life was Guyana, C.A. Nascimento and R.A. Burrows, ed. possibly the greatest success of North Korea's (Trinidad and Jamaica: Longman Caribbean, experiment in exporting its culture and 1970) 70. ideology to the rest of the world, particularly the developing world. More broadly, it leaves 6 Forbes Burnham,Declaration of Sophia us with a fascinating case study of the kind of (Georgetown, Guyana, 1974), PNC Collection, artistic innovation and trans-national cultural National Archives, Georgetown, Guyana. collaboration borne of the post-colonial era ms1 under the pressures of the Cold War , and the 7 Timothy Ashby, The Bear in the Back Yard: way in which socialist ideas and the promises Moscow's Caribbean Strategy (Massachusetts: they embodied were received and reinterpreted Lexington Books, 1987) 143-145. by Third World intellectuals and politicos struggling with the challenges of the post- 8 Tyrone Ferguson, To Survive Sensibly or to colonial terrain. Court Heroic Death: Management of Guyana's

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Political Economy, 1966 -1985 (Georgetown, of North Korea's Arirang Mass Games," Asian Guyana: Public Affairs Consulting Enterprise, Music, Vol 44, No 1 (Winter/Spring 2013): 3-32. 1999), 251-255. 23 Kim Jong-il, On Furthering Mass Games 9 Ashby, 145-146. Gymnastics: Talk to Mass Gymnastics Producers, April 11, 1987 (Pyongyang: Foreign 10 Gail A. Eadie and Denise M. Grizzell, "China's languages Publishing House, 2006), 1. Foreign Aid, 1975-78" The China Quarterly, No. 77 (March 1979), pp. 217-234. 24 Ibid.

11 Ibid. 25 Ibid.

12 Charles K. Armstrong, Tyranny of the Weak: 26 Ibid. North Korea and the World, 1950-1992 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2013) 27 Ibid. 168. 28 Ibid. 13 John Chay, "North Korea: Relations with the Third World," in Jae Kyu Park and Jung Gun 29 Ibid., 1-2. Kim, eds., The Politics of North Korea (Seoul: Institute for Far Eastern Studies, 1979), pp. 30 Ibid., 2. 263-276. 31 Ibid., 2-3. 14 Chay, p. 268-269, 273-274. 32 New Nation, 27 January 1980. 15 "After 34 years the struggle continues," New

Nation (Georgetown, Guyana) 1 July 1984. 33 "The People Who Made Mass Games

16 Possible," New Nation, 16 March 1980. "Pak Song-Chol Speaks at Banquet for Guyanese Vice President," Pyongyang Domestic 34 Ibid. Service in Korean, reprinted in Korean Affairs

Report (US Department of Commerce, 35 Ibid. Springfield, VA) 21 May 1982. 36 Ibid. 17 Ibid.

37 18 Fr Andrew Morrison, SJ, Justice: The struggle Hamilton Green, interview with the author, 11 December 2010. for democracy in Guyana, 1952-1992 (Guyana: self-published, 1998), 106. 19 Rudiger Frank, "The Arirang Mass Games of 38 North Korea," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 11, George Simon, interview with the author, 30 Issue 46, No. 2 (December 2013) . April 2012.

39 20 Ibid. New Nation, 27 January 1980.

40 21 Ibid. Patricia Cambridge, interview with the author, 29 July 2013. 22 Lisa Burnett, "Let Morning Shine over Pyongyang: The Future-Oriented Nationalism 41 Ibid.

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42 Ibid. 57 Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow(1884–1958), dock worker who founded the British Guiana 43 Simon, 30 April 2012. Labour Union (BGLU) in 1917, the first trade union in the Caribbean. 44 Ibid. 58 "Preparations for Mass Games '88 45 This was the title of one of the PNC's earliest underway," New Nation, 20 December 1987. and most central development goals: national self-sufficiency in food, clothing and housing 59 On Guyana's economic challenges during the production. The original target date was 1976, Burnham era, see Hope (1985), Jeffery & Baber but as this proved overly ambitious FCH (1986). morphed into an open-ended campaign throughout the Burnham era. 60 Clive Y. Thomas, "State Capitalism in Guyana: an Assessment of Burnham's Co- 46 New Nation, 16 March 1980. operative Socialist Republic," in Crisis in the Caribbean, Fitzroy Ambursley and Robin 47 Raschid Osman, "Mass Games a resounding Cohen, ed. (New York: Monthly Review Press, success…and spectacular," The Chronicle, 29 1983): 32-36. February 1980. 61 Percy Hintzen, The Cost of Regime Survival: 48 "The People Who Made Mass GamesRacial mobilization, elite domination and Possible," New Nation, 13 April 1980. control of the state in Guyana and Trinidad (Cambridge: University Press, 1989), 93-94. 49 Ibid. 62 In Burnham-era Guyanese parlance, a 50 "Mass Games at Albion: a truly spectacular slacker. affair," New Nation, 17 June 1984. 63 Taken from various issues ofNew Nation 51 "MASH – our biggest mass participation during 1979-81. event," New Nation, 12 January 1986. 64 Burnham (1970), 61-62. 52 Yolanda Marshall, interview with the author, 2 November 2010. 65 Ferguson, 158.

53 "Thousands Thrilled At Mass Games66 Kim Il Sung, Works, Vol 20 (Pyongyang: Spectacle," Guyana Chronicle, 24 February Foreign Language Publishing House, 1984), 1985. 451-452.

54 MASH – our biggest mass participation 67 "National Cultural Construction is an urgent event," New Nation, 12 January 1986. question in the independent development of newly emerging countries," Kulloja, No. 12, 55 "Mass Games '87 to highlight Guyana's (December 1983): 55-60. beauty," New Nation, 17 August 1986. 68 Ferguson, 158. 56 Such a tribute to Jagan, leader of the opposition, would have been unthinkable in 69 A number of scholars have discussed a Burnham's time, and reflected the newhistoric tendency of the middle-class leadership direction being initiated by Hoyte. of the Caribbean Left to gravitate towards a

24 13 | 4 | 2 APJ | JF particularly elitist variety of vanguardism. See government advertisement, 1980, PNC James 1962, Wilson 1986, Mars 1998. Collection, National Archives, Georgetown, Guyana. 70 Ferguson, 189. 79 Radio programViewpoint , Guyana 71 Burnham (1974), 26. Broadcasting Corporation, 22 November 1988. The author thanks Ian McDonald for sharing 72 Ferguson, 332. the written transcript of the broadcast.

73 "A Mass Games Perspective," New Nation, 2 80 "Mass Games and McDonald's Quackery," February 1980. New Nation, 27 November 1988.

74 Richard Stites,Revolutionary Dreams: 81 Ibid. Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the 82 Russian Revolution (New York: Oxford Ibid. University Press, 1989), 94. 83 Ibid. 75 Paraphrased by McDonald on the Guyana 84 Ibid. Broadcasting Corporation radio program 85 Radio programViewpoint , Guyana Viewpoint, 22 November 1988. The author Broadcasting Corporation, 6 December 1988. thanks Ian McDonald for sharing the written transcript of the broadcast. 86 Ibid.

76 Jenny Persaud, letter to the editor, Stabroek 87 Ibid. News 30 November 1988. 88 Ibid. 77 Janet Forte, letter to the editor,Stabroek News, 16 Nov 1988. 89 Green, 11 December 2010.

78 "Where national service beckons we follow," 90 Simon, 30 April 2012.