Basis of Creole culture

There are some in Guyana who make an automatic equation between economic power and political power. The real world is not so simple… even if we may wish to be simplistic. Utilising and extending some concepts formulated by the Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci, I suggest there is a reservoir of power in civil society which may be relatively autonomous from the state. This power is exercised through the hegemony the dominant group within civil society – in post-independence Guyana, the Creole elite – established over the minds of the populace. This dominant group may, but does not necessarily always, also control the state or economy.
Hegemony can be seen as “the moral and philosophical leadership a dominant group seeks to establish in a society, through the active consent of the major groups in the society.” These moral and philosophical ideas shape people’s perceptions and, consequently, their activities. In a nutshell, they form the basis of the popular culture and narratives, which the populace accepts as “common sense”. These ideas and values are disseminated by religious groups, the schools, the political groups, the cultural activists, the law and the media and all of the other socialisation mechanisms of the society.
We can understand how this hegemonising process operates by looking historically at our colonial period when “creole culture” was formed. The British White Colonial Bureaucracy controlled the state, while the planters and other Whites controlled the economy and civil society. Viewing their interests vis-à-vis the masses as coincident, the three power centres cooperated in imposing a unified worldview to make the slave or free African/coloured actively accept his condition of subservience. Thus, sparing the funds and anxiety, which would have been necessary with the older coercion mechanisms. The slave had to be convinced he was a “savage” who had to be “civilised”. Consumption patterns and family structures were encouraged, which ensured that he would always be at subsistence levels. We can cite many examples from the array of socialisation institutions mentioned earlier, but the dissemination of religious beliefs exemplifies the process well.
The approved religion was Christianity, with its activities funded by a combination of state, planter and private resources. The problem was not Christianity per se, but the manner in which it was interpreted by Whites and taught to the Africans. Firstly, the African indigenous religions in which they saw and worshipped the Divine in its creations, such as rivers and trees, were derided as “animism”. Secondly, intent generally was never the avowed salvation of the ‘souls’ of the Africans but the creation of a pliable workforce. Thirdly, Christianity was made into a “white” religion in which the Black African would always be second class; Jesus would always be blonde and blue-eyed … and he was in the image of God!
The fact that Africans had a link with Christianity preceding that of the British, or of Western Europe for that matter, was ignored. The fact that Africans had greater legitimacy in asserting that Jesus was Black was ignored. Historically advanced Egypt was denied being part of “savage” Africa. Rewards of the hereafter were stressed, and the blessedness of the meek and poor were extolled. Never mind that the white preachers and their sponsors were neither noticeably meek nor poor. Even though the British admitted the accomplishments of Islamic culture, in Spain, for instance, they would not concede that this was an African achievement and that Africans were exposed to Islam even before Indians and that many African slaves – Fulanis, for example – were Muslims.
Now, one important aspect in hegemonic relations is that once the main purpose of the hegemon has been achieved [the willing acceptance by the dominated of the unequal power relations], the hegemon will be willing to make innocuous compromises depending on the specific circumstances. Thus, after the Christianising experience was duplicated in all aspects of culture by the schools, etc., and the framework of the debilitating Creole culture was created, “suitable” coloured and Black ex-slaves were accepted on the lower rungs of “society”, along with some elements of African culture – drumming, dancing, some food, etc. This African element increased noticeably in the twentieth century. Creole culture is thus, by and large, an Afro-Saxon culture, which the overwhelming majority of African Guyanese accept as theirs. As Rex Nettleford has noted, this culture was very much in place by the time the indentured Indians arrived. (to be continued)