Dear Editor,
After reading in the media Nigel Hinds’s interesting letter, titled “I prefer you call me African Guyanese”, I wondered why the one-word descriptor “Guyanese” is not enough.
I grew up hearing and believing that “Guyana was a land of six people (African, Amerindian, Chinese, European, Indian, Portuguese), and after Independence, we were socialized to embrace the concept of “One People, One Nation, One Destiny”….all Guyanese!
Am I wrong in thinking that a logical extension of Mr Hinds’s postulation is that Guyana is now a land of ten (10) peoples, having regard to the recent ‘migrations’ to our land (i.e in alphabetic order: African, Amerindian, Brazilian, Chinese, European, Haitian, Indian, Surinamese, Portuguese, Venezuelan); thus we will have, in addition to African Guyanese: Indian Guyanese, Amerindian Guyanese, Brazilian Guyanese, Venezuelan Guyanese, Haitian Guyanese etc. etc?
Would this not add to our already deleterious, dangerous divisiveness and detract from what should be a commitment to the cohesiveness being pursued by the Government and, hopefully, all Guyanese?
Sincerely,
Nowrang Persaud
