Volume 13 | Issue 4 | Number 2 | Article ID 4258 | Jan 26, 2015 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus '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