Interview with His Excellency President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana
May 29th 2002
1 P.M.
Georgetown, GUYANA

Participants were His Excellency President Bharrat Jagdeo, President of Guyana; Greg Bennick of the World Leaders Project, and Sheldon Solomon of the World Leaders Project.

GREG BENNICK: We wanted to come here and speak with you today about the nature of human violence, and both give some insights and hear some insights about the nature of this violence and perhaps brainstorm some ways that we could, through looking at the psychology of violence, turn the inclination of humans to act violently towards other away from the gut instinct, immediate reactions which seem to be pervading the entire world at this point. In the letter we had sent to you originally, we had noted some of those ideas.

PRESIDENT JAGDEO: (smiles) Exactly, but know I don't read things...(he laughs). What I do is come cold into meetings. (Laughter)

SHELDON SOLOMON: Good!

GREG BENNICK: That's great. I think that's fantastic. We actually came prepared for that (laughs), and we brought you this document that spells out the sort of reasoning and thinking behind what we are talking about. And these are the books which inspired this thought. (Sheldon hands him copies of The Denial of Death and Escape From Evil) And at your leisure, these are gifts...

PRESIDENT JAGDEO: I get some time, you know, when I travel, so then I read.

GREG BENNICK: Great! This day, week, month, or year...whenever you get a chance.

PRESIDENT JAGDEO: (Laughs)

GREG BENNICK: We'd be happy to have that happen. Okay, if we had to think of one question that we wanted to ask you about...and I guess I can set up the question by saying that it is our feeling that the innate human fear of death inspires people to lash out violently against others. Innately, the fact that we fear our own mortality causes us to want to be immortal essentially and to live symbolically longer than we are going to be on this earth. Anybody who poses a threat to the idea that we are going to exist in our physical bodies or exist symbolically in terms of what we establish for ourselves in this world...anybody who poses a threat to that is somebody we need to derogate, assimilate into our views, annihilate or accomodate essentially in order to negate their worldview. With that fear of death in mind, our question is: how can we as leaders turn the tide of violence through policy or persuasion? Maybe we can brainstorm ways to get people to not want to beat each other up, kill each other, derogate or annihilate one another. How can we create a situation where those things don't happen as quickly or as readily and perhaps even open avenues towards alternatives?

PRESIDENT JAGDEO: Well, there are different perspectives on this matter. You seem to think that fear of death causes a lot of the violence that we have. But many people think that it is a learned behavior and it comes out of their environment and that people are products of their enviroment. I think there is going to be a debate on these perspectives but I don't want to enter into that debate because violence in any form is degrading and it leads to a society which could really cheat its full potential, and that is speaking as President of Guyana. For me personally, we have to create an environment where violence is not the only way to solve problems. Many people feel that violence is the way to solve problems, and this comes out of their family environment, but there are other ways to solving problems. I know personally that in many cases, coming from my village where I come from, where I've seen different approaches. People who launch a dialogue and their parents talk a lot with them et cetera...they react very differently from people who may not have parents or who for example come from a single parent family. Their approaches to solving problems are different. I don't want to stereotype people because that is another problem too. I am speaking generally because you have people from single parent families who never exhibit these traits. For me, I think that it is creating that environment within the country, and within the family where the virtues and the social organizations all say that there are other ways of dealing with the problems of the world than through violence. But that is how I would approach it.

GREG BENNICK: Do you see any evidence or any substantiation to the idea I brought up about the fear of death?

PRESIDENT JAGDEO: Yes, yes! I was just pointing out another view. That is why I did not want to enter into the debate. I am not dismissing what you said, as I am sure that it is valid in some circumstances. I am sure it is valid. In a much more general sense, I think it is a product of our environment and in many ways we are products of the trends in the world too and the trends which are taking place in the world. These are trends which are becoming much more prevalent: families are breaking up and the divorce rate for example. Material things are taking over and with that comes a block to many of the feelings which have associated us with other people. In many places in the past, maybe not the recent past but the distant past when there were other things that were much more important...today that has broken down completely. And the point I am trying to make is that as the material world becomes more important to us in terms of fulfillment of individual dreams and desires - which are very important - we do so without regard for the rest of society. So, many of the social values are falling apart at the expense of personal values. This is the result of socialization on a large scale. This is a new value system that we are creating which in some ways is an accomodated violence.

SHELDON SOLOMON: That is very well put.

PRESIDENT JAGDEO: Violence has, in many cases become a legitimate tool to the end of our personal gratification and our personal value system. People see suffering and they don't feel it anymore. These are very intelligent people, but it just shows that if you are bombarded by something for a sufficiently long period, you incorporate something without even knowing it. Unless you stop and think consciously about it, you don't realize that its wrong. I think that is what we need to do more often. We need to find little correcting points...points where we can stop to think more about these things because it is all a mad rush...a mad rush...the whole world is in a mad rush.

(To be continued as soon as I can transcribe it...check back soon!)

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