The Budget brouhaha should remind us that we, the citizens of Guyana, must see it as a “common venture” even as we reject conceptions of “nation” that may be oppressive to existing diversities. “Nation” and “state” have to be disarticulated yet Guyanese have to achieve some commonality of outlook to survive, much less prosper in the modern world.
At independence Guyanese inherited a state but not a nation, since the happenstance of their arrivals ensured that they had no common culture. The experience across the world has demonstrated that people do not identify with the state in a spontaneous, automatic manner – and that’s partially why Guyanese have clung to their ethnicities.
The challenge would be to construct a “unity” of the peoples within the Guyanese state that does not seek to obliterate the diversities but is more receptive and accommodative of self-conceptions. One obstacle to such as unity is the refusal to accept that diversity is not the opposite of “unity” (“homogeneity” is) rather its opposite is “disunity”. The solution to the apparent dilemma is to accommodate diversity without fostering disunity.
Interestingly enough, Canada and Australia, two ex-British colonies, have taken the lead in redefining their “national” identity. They have both rejected the unitary “nation-state” model and chose “multiculturalism” as their ideology for unity. In their understanding, multiculturalism is an official government policy that promotes cultural diversity, and the “national” is conceived as the space within which many (ethnically defined and even imagined) communities live and interact.
Taking our cue from these states, it is proposed that we demarcate our cultural sphere as a private one, and not to be used as the criterion for building the overarching unity we need in the public sphere. The Guyanese state would adopt the policy of multiculturalism as a Governmental policy response to a multicultural society ie a society that is culturally pluralist.
The policy response, “multiculturalism”, must be distinguished from the societal condition of being multicultural. Most countries are multicultural but only a handful are multiculturalist. Multiculturalism must be seen as a set of principles, policies, and practices for accommodating diversity as a legitimate and integral component of society. This does not mean that the state has nothing to do with culture but that it does not privilege any one culture over others.
What is being suggested is that we move from the idea of a “national culture” as a site for identification to the shared practice of a political ideology as the basis for engendering such identification within the state. We situate this construction of a national outlook within what can be seen as a project of democratisation – the creation of conditions where we are all treated as one, equally, by the state.
Equality of opportunity; human rights, encouragement of diversities, due process; justice and fair play and rule of law may seem dry compared to the warmth of the blood ties of “nation”, but they can engender the unity of public purpose and the recognition of individual worth where all can be proud of their common citizenship.
Citizenship of Guyana has to become something that has concrete meaning to all of us.
For Guyana then, our ethnicities would be defined outside our “Guyaneseness” and to be African-, Indian- or Amerindian-Guyanese would not be contradictory in any sense. The first part of our identity would be specific while the latter universalistic. The “national” will now be a space where ethnic communities can live and share. To be Guyanese would be to share public moral precepts – norms, values and attitudes – rather than necessarily, shared cultural experience and practice. To the extent that they are shared it is to be lauded but it must never be at the imperative to jettison one culture.
A “good” Guyanese would be one who is loyal to this country and strives to practice the secular universalistic ideological values it extols.
