On being Guyanese

It is a cliché to observe that at independence, “we inherited a state and not a nation” in a world of “nation states” that had been evolving in the west since 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia. The union of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, for instance, was defined as the state of “Britain” ruled by a Monarch and then as a Parliamentary democracy, and the peoples as the “British” nation. Guyana, however, ruled by those same British who dragged us from across the globe to labour on their behalf, was called the “Land of Six Peoples” as we slowly emerged from colonialism. Few of us would disagree that because of our divisive ethnic politics, one reason for our post-independence travails was the unwillingness to put our shoulders to the wheel as “Guyanese” for our country’s progress.
Hopefully, we also agree that we must achieve some national commonality of purpose to face the challenges that confront us internationally as a state and domestically as a nation for all our peoples to live with dignity in prosperity. Three decades ago, we proposed that a feeling of “we, the people” – of “Guyanese-ness” – can be engendered in the process of our conscious construction of a democratic state to achieve that commonality of purpose. We called this “Project Democracy – the creation of conditions wherein we are all treated equally by the state. We proposed democratic principles for all aspects of our lives – political, social, cultural, etc – to be our goal.
Thankfully, what we had defined as our “ethnic security dilemmas” in our political participation, a consequence of our fear of group powerlessness due to inbuilt ethnic majorities, have slowly been dissolving as differential emigration rates created a nation of minorities with incentives for parties to seek votes from all ethnic groups. While the values of “Project Democracy” – constitutionally protected equality of opportunity, affirmative action, due process, justice and fair play, rule of law, etc. – may seem dry compared to the warmth of the blood ties of “ethnicity”, they can engender the unity of public purpose and the recognition of individual worth through common citizenship.
And what might provide the incentives for creating such a state? The same incentives that spurred the development of every other democracy: actual and potential crises and social conflicts. Our episodic crises since independence, oftentimes ending in violent confrontations, have already precipitated discourses on appropriate state institutions to deliver the good life to the greatest number of Guyanese of all stripes. The test of our democratic system would be to successfully mediate the social conflicts in our society, especially ethnically generated ones, and achieve goals such as economic growth, material security, cultural autonomy, and freedom from arbitrary violence.
Some have proposed that the state structure must be changed to “power sharing” among parties representing the several ethnic groups to equitably distribute the “what, when and how” of politics among those groups. But this will ossify ethnic divisions that are now being demonstrably bridged because of our changed demographics, as seen in the September 1 elections. It will also lead to gridlock in governance, as demonstrated in our inability to appoint substantive higher judicial appointments through de facto “power sharing”.
We have proposed that to create the context for democracy to take root, if not explicit integrative federalist principles, then deep devolution with a key role for the villages be introduced. These have informed most of the innovations in multinational/ethnic states across the world that alleviated hostilities and furthered the democratic ideal. Part of our problem is that some see our diverse heritage in contradiction to being “Guyanese”. This is a false dilemma. If we so choose, we can be “African-Guyanese” or “Amerindian-Guyanese” or “Indian-Guyanese”, etc. This simply acknowledges our particular heritages, which we should not try to elide or erase, because history has shown it is an almost impossible task that, in the end, is not really necessary.
Our cultural-national sphere should be demarcated as a private one, with minimal state intervention, and multiculturalism should be the order of the day. Among modern states, Canada seems to have hit a good note for us to emulate, with its stress on citizenship and multiculturalism and rejection of ethnic jingoism. The task of politics and politicians in Guyana today is not to tell people to jettison their heritages but to create a state that we can proudly say is working for “we, the Guyanese people…” in One Guyana.