We do not editorialise much about race and racism, as such writings in the political milieu of Guyana could easily be interpreted as pejorative and aimed at keeping the racial pot boiling. That said, however, in the interest of wanting to see a more cohesive and progressive society, recent political developments demand that we comment on two highly controversial expressions made by two public service officers, one of whom is a senior Government minister.
First, the President’s press officer, Lloyda Garette, in a social media chat sometime ago, referred to Indians as “coolies”. Bishop Edghill, with whom Ms Garette once worked, and who knew her quite well, suggested that she contritely admit her mistake and make a public apology. The Social Cohesion Minister, Dr George Norton, a senior minister in the Cabinet, whose portfolio is to bring about racial cohesion and understanding in Guyana, also appealed to Ms Garette to do the same as Bishop Edgehill had advised. Ms Garette, however, held her ground, and apologized only to the staff at the Ministry of the Presidency; and in this position, she had some high-level political support in the Government.
Her position and attitude, together with the political support she has received, have provided full license for others to use similar terms, which could easily be offensive to other ethnic groups. Had Ms Garette heeded the advice proffered to her, all would have been forgiven and forgotten, and social cohesiveness would have been a bit closer.
The other expression is Education Minister Nicolette Henry’s now famous Parliamentary statement made during the recent Budget Debate: “I am not a Chatree, so I may not know when there is Diwali or Phagwa; but I do know what it takes to improve the Education sector”. It should be pointed out, too, that some months ago, this minister embarrassingly and surprisingly made a public statement confusing the two main Hindu festivals of Diwali and Phagwah. Though she was taken to task for this unacceptable ignorance, she offered no excuse or apology.
Her statement in Parliament recently was in reference to the same absurd mistake she had made some months ago, and was a reiteration of it. The statement was widely regarded by many as manifesting an insensitive ignorance and contempt of a most important religious and cultural strand in Guyanese society.
The minister’s statement evoked a great deal of comment, which pointed out its racist nature and the racial stain on the APNU/AFC Government which had condoned it. Little or no comment was made on her questionable statement: “I do know what it takes to improve the Education Sector”.
Culture and Education are inextricably bound up. In essence, it would be impossible for one to be a successful and effective educationist, either as practitioner, administrator or policy maker, except one has a full grasp of the Culture of the country one is responsible for educating.
We will give a simple example to illustrate the absolute necessity for an educationist to be fully knowledgeable of the culture of those he/she is trying to educate: In North America, some years ago, an educationist was giving IQ tests to a group of Amerindian children and a group of Caucasians. In other ways, the children were observed to be not much different in intelligence, but in the IQ tests, the Amerindian children scored much lower marks than the Caucasians. The strange results of the IQ tests were found to be the result of cultural differences. The Amerindian children came from a cultural norm which was based on cooperative assumptions, and so the brighter children waited on the less capable ones. The Caucasian children came from a competitive society, with everyone trying to do better than the others.
We believe that the minister, like Ms Garette, could have saved herself the stain of being a racist or an inadequate education policy maker if she had gracefully admitted her mistake, and apologised and pledged herself to learn more of the cultures in the plural society in which she has to function. Had she done so, and had her political supporters in the Government refrained from being the cheerleaders of unacceptable racial manifestations, licence would not have been given to those of the same ilk to throw back the same kind of racial riposte and to keep the racial pot boiling.
Further, this would have been viewed as an important and necessary step in helping to build social cohesion in Guyana, which the Government says it is working diligently to achieve.
