Preparing to return to Guyana in the late 1980s, I literally stumbled over a text that was most seminal to my later interventions here: Donald Horowitz’ “Ethnic Groups in Conflict”. Long before then, I’d rejected the prevalent reductionist Marxism of the major local theorists and was looking around for some explanation that had a better fit for our political realities. Horowitz’ voluminous work comprehensively did that then and still does that today.
Ethnic politics, he proposed, begins with the various ethnic groups in plural societies comparing themselves to each other. Inextricably linked to the comparison process is an evaluative component. The psychologist Leon Festinger had postulated a “Social Comparison Process” as a human drive in individuals, to evaluate our abilities by comparing them with the abilities of others. When discrepancies are manifested by performance, efforts are made to reduce discrepancies by either improving performance or by controlling the superior performance of a competitor.
In these states we find that between groups the process of comparison is a constant and ever-present reality. This becomes a source of conflict as the comparisons are inevitably evaluated from the standpoint of the “inalienable right of equality” or from whatever standard each group decides is “just” – not just in reference to power. This is not to imply that questions of power differentials are obviated: the “worth” of a group is itself indicia of the group’s position on the power spectrum. Much of the heat in ethnic interactions is generated from questions of self-worth, which is inextricably tied up with group worth as was mentioned before.
In Guyana this comparison between the ethnic groups started from the founding of the colony in the 17th century. The Europeans evaluated themselves as infinitely superior culturally to the Amerindians and later to the African slaves they brought to work on the plantations. In fact there were serious debates amongst Europeans as to whether the Africans could be said to have possessed any culture or even “souls”: the conclusion by the white masters was that they did not and this conclusion, of course justified slavery, during which “culture” could be imparted and souls saved.
From the period of “seasoning” of the slaves as they were brought from Africa, to the end of their lives, the denigration of the native African culture was never to let up. Most of the slaves and moreso the Mulatto, accepted the idea of the superiority of European culture and all worked valiantly to master its forms, if not necessarily its substance. The conquest of the minds of the slave was an economically conscious enterprise since the hegemonised slave was more pliant and in fact begged for and treasured his mental chains.
This hegemonising process accelerated after the abolition of slavery in 1834 when schools were opened to “educate the Africans” and churches expanded their reach in tandem with the schools they ran. The Mulattos were mostly illegitimate offsprings of white males and African slave women and were treated favourably by their fathers and given their freedom. They were a schizophrenic group, defined as “Mixed”, rebuffed by white society but holding themselves above the Africans. They kept themselves aloof from Africans up to the anti-colonial struggles of the 1960s. Through education and occupation some full-blooded Africans were allowed to join their ranks. The Mulattos generally despised the black blood in themselves and made sure Africans knew it. The hybrid culture formed, where everything was evaluated with the white and his culture deemed to be the standard, was dubbed “Creole Culture”.
Thus when the other groups were introduced into the colony to replace the slaves, they were quickly evaluated by the latter through the values they had inculcated from the Europeans. The Portuguese and Chinese were derided mercilessly but as soon as they reached the towns, towards which they gravitated after their indenture, they quickly joined the rush to acculturate according to the standards of the White/Creole society. Even though the Portuguese kept their Roman Catholic practices, in all other ways they fitted in, as did the Chinese, who became staunch Protestants.
(To be continued)
