As elements of the Opposition rail against the PPP’s policy to mobilise across the old ethnic divide as “slave catching”, the need for a commitment to multicultural practices become imperative, since such mobilisations demand an appreciation of other cultures. A “multicultural practice” means there will be fair and equitable treatment of others by individuals, groups, and institutions. Instead of racism and discrimination, there will be respectful and equal treatment of individuals and groups from any ethnic, racial, or immigrant background.
With the vast majority of Guyanese brought to Guyana in the last three hundred years, we do not have the tools to imagine a nation “looming out of a common immemorial past”. But while we will have to accept the diversity we find ourselves with, we will also have to hone some kind of unity so that we may achieve what most modern States are expected to deliver to their citizens – at a minimum, civil peace. Diverse mobilisations can assist in this goal.
The question of “national culture” has been the site of the contestation of power in civil society as well as the State. It has, therefore, been a wider struggle than the political. This is what multicultural practices address. Even under forced assimilatory colonial practices, ethnic bonds were never completely annihilated – witness Scottish nationalism playing out today. Modern communications facilitate the dissemination and forging of ethnic bonds. Modern international norms of ‘equality’ and ‘self-determinations’ of peoples militate against cultural hegemony being accepted by even tiny minorities. Political praxis must, therefore, accept as their starting point, a broadening of their outreaches that are culturally sensitive, so that the dignity of all is reinforced.
It is a fact about the world that there are many multicultural societies since each member of such societies is also a member of a particular cultural group. And each member of a cultural group will have different experiences from another belonging to a different cultural group. This is because our culture shapes and gives meaning to our life-plans. And the mere participation of each member helps to change the culture itself. Out of this relationship between people and their cultures arises a sense of identity and belonging, but each group must not be hermetically sealed off from others as is proposed by some in the Opposition.
The question as to whether “unity” or “diversity” should be privileged is partially a semantic one, caused by the conflation of “State” and “nation”. But at the bottom, the dispute has to do with power as it almost always does. Political unity and cultural diversity do not have to be mutually exclusive. Each society, including Guyana, has to find the right balance between the demands of the two concepts that is appropriate for its own circumstances. Part of the problem was that the exigencies of the “State” were being conflated with those of the “nation”. We need political unity to guide the State, but that is not contradictory to “diversity” in terms of the “nation” – of diverse cultural expressions by the people of a given society.
We need to address the type of cultural integration that may be best for Guyana in view of its evident cultural diversity. Political integration will assist in cultural integration when political parties tailor their mobilisation practices to the different cultural expressions. In the century and a half in which our plural society took shape, we are living a Guyanese culture that has given us at least an understanding of how easily we can tilt over the edge. Since each “shared understanding” may entail a different conception of the good life, compromise becomes the obvious imperative for the political viability of our culturally-plural society.
Since because of our history, politics is so dominant in all aspects of our national life, the political parties must all follow the PPP’s lead and attempt to mobilise across the divides which will force them to understand the cultural imperatives of the “other”.
