By Ryhaan Shah
Following up on last Sunday’s column on the rise of nativism, Guyana’s rather unique “racism” also bears some investigation.
Racism is an ideology of domination based on the idea of biological and cultural superiority of one or more groups which is used to justify the treatment of others as inferior. Whole societies can be structured along racial lines or there can be, as occurred during the Burnham era, institutionalised racism where African-Guyanese were favoured by the very structure of government and society.
But Guyana does not conform to all the sociological norms of racism. Here, the “racist” term is especially reserved for Indian-Guyanese who speak from their perspective as Indians despite constitutional and human rights guarantees to their identity.
While the Indian communities are the ones that suffer racial/political attacks, in a perverse twist, they are also the ones condemned as the country’s “racists”, and the violence against them is justified by a wide swathe of society including a number of Indian-Guyanese.
The twists and turns that have led to this unique “racism” has its roots in Guyana’s colonial past.
The Indians who were viewed as “acceptable” were the educated professionals like the Luckhoos and Ruhomons. They had converted to Christianity and, in the process, had subsumed their Indian identity. These were the Indians who “arrived” into colonial society.
At the other end of the colonial experience were men like JB Singh and Ayube Edun of the British Guiana East Indian Association. The majority of Indians subscribed to their view that our future lay in honouring the heritage of our foreparents.
When Dr Cheddi Jagan entered politics, he might have succeeded as a champion of the working class had the PPP remained whole. However, the split with Burnham refashioned him as an ethnic leader, a role he never relished or wanted for himself.
To the socialist Jagan, the Indian professional and business class was the despised bourgeoisie. He, too, needed to recast his supporters into another image to satisfy his ambition of being a true leader of all Guyanese. To this end, the PPP generally ignored the ethnicity of their followers and the specific issues that came with it. This while Burnham fully embraced being an African leader.
Adding to “racism” in Guyana is the ideology of “oneness” with its jingoism of “love and unity” which is simple-minded enough to enjoy popular support. Within this context, Indians who value their cultural identity are viewed as “racists” for rejecting the sameness required to be “one”. Because the “all awe is one” jingle sounds nice to the ear, no one stops to consider that the message speaks to a clear disrespect for cultural and ethnic diversity just as Brexit does in the UK and Trumpism is doing in America.
It promotes the dominance of “one” over every “other” – the textbook definition of racism.
For Indians to even speak of race makes us “racist” and when the stumbling block to Guyana’s progress and development is the race divide between Indians and Africans, this becomes problematic: how do you address the problem if simply stating it makes you racist?
Many, therefore, say nothing. They embrace the ideology of “love and unity” even when, as exemplified by the Coalition Government, it is nothing but empty rhetoric. But being accepted into the lie is more rewarding than addressing the truth. It leads some Indians to self-hatred and to justify their hate, they need to accuse culturally secure Indians of “racism”.
African Guyanese’s pride in being African is never viewed as racism and they are content with this inequality which shuts out Indians from engaging in the vital discourse on race and racism. Indians who persist endure the abuse of being called “racists”.
In his quest to be a Guyanese leader, Jagan helped to create this inequality. The PPP continually placates African Guyanese in order to win them back, and often at the expense of their loyal Indian supporters.
Independent Indian Guyanese who address Indian issues are seen as political threats to the PPP and the accusation always levelled at them is that they are “racists”, an accusation that is readily picked up by African Guyanese and Indians who continue to support the idea that the only acceptable Indian Guyanese is the colonised “mimic man” who subsumes or forgoes his Indian identity.
It is time to push the reset button and get everyone on the same page where to address the race issue does not make you racist and where the mindless jingoism of “oneness” is accepted for the disregard for diversity that it is.
