Last Thursday I presented a paper on the transition of Portuguese identity in Guyana, at the Ecotones-2 Conference hosted by the University of Poitiers (Migrinter-CNRS). It would have been difficult to situate this narrative under the thematic of migration and identities delivered to a room of European, North American and African academics, without making brief reference to Guyana’s political history, its demographic specificities and the underlying ethnic tensions of its heavily polarised society – the result of decades upon decades of ethnic politics.
Professor Emeritus Dr Johan Jacobs (Kwa-Zulu University) was, of all participants present, perhaps the most captivated by the Guyanese context, as it evoked similarities with the political landscape of his own native South Africa. I initially set out to avoid broaching the problematic of Guyanese politics, but soon enough realised that the question of identity, whether in colonial or independent Guyana, is intertwined with that of the country’s historical context of ethnic politics. Guyana: that country where race struggle takes precedence over nation-building, where politicians impede on development for reasons which defy the very principles of a socially cohesive and united Nation-State; did Professor Jacobs see this too?
The current debacle between Indigenous peoples and the Government of Guyana is highly demonstrative of the ethnic bias which permeates today’s policy-making. With the order to interrupt the UN partnered Amerindian Land Titling Project as of June 15, 2017, Indigenous land rights have been officially hijacked by the PNC-led coalition. There will be no Indigenous land rights if the African land reparation claims are not satisfied. And this is a presidential order, which, as Labour Minister Keith Scott said with a straight face during the last parliamentary sitting, doesn’t need the majority consensus of Indigenous peoples, nor their Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). President Granger’s word has become law.
With the latest revelation on Legal Affairs Minister Basil William’s leaked email in which he asserts that the Caribbean Court of Justice “is a black people thing”, Guyanese can now be certain that even the Judiciary is at the mercy of a Coalition Government which does little to hide a highly skewed agenda. Williams’ use of national institutions to witch-hunt and persecute political opponents, is a product of this thinly veiled racism which pervades within the highest of Government ranks.
Racism. Sexism. This is what characterised the social media lynching I received from Minister Simona Broomes’ loyalists, after I called her out for mining on Indigenous proposed-title lands. There is something sad in the predictability of the reaction I solicited, in its lack of constructive criticism and its heinous messages laden with threats of violence. Sad, because it sent me back to the 1997 riots instigated by Hoyte’s “slow fire moh fire” call to action, an incitement to racial hate. It sent me back to the PNC mob violence which systematically plagues general elections in Guyana. It sent me back to Burnham’s racist dictatorship. It sent me back to Wismar and the Son Chapman sinking. Sad, because the PNC today, is a mere extension of what it was yesterday. There is no PNC Reform.
In retrospect, there is little pride to be had in saying that this is what would inevitably happen should the heirs of Guyana’s late dictator return to power. A widespread sentiment of lassitude, of disempowerment, has gained citizens. When the President, former commander of Burnham’s army declared that the dictator was the author of “social cohesion and architect of national unity” in Guyana, you could be certain that the PNC is not inclined to change. When the Labour Minister accuses Guyana’s First Peoples of being greedy, you know that Burnham’s agenda has been resuscitated. When the military trained are hand-picked to serve in every strategic position possible, you know the old military men have once again come to curse Guyana’s history.
Identity formation can never be given the space it needs to grow, exist and coexist in Guyana, if race cannot be stripped from the formulation of sustainable policy-making. In the span of just two years, discriminatory policies have caused the fissures of ethnic tensions which constantly threaten the nation’s integrity, to attain a point of rupture, whereby the people, save party loyalists, no longer believe in the Coalition, or the State.
Never in recent years, has the veil of racism plunged Guyanese in as much darkness and incertitude for the future, as it does today.
