Values for One Guyana

It has been asserted by many that at Independence, we “inherited a state but not a nation”. With the vast majority of Guyanese arbitrarily dumped into Guyana over the last few hundred years to join the Indigenous peoples already here, it was posited we simply did not have the collective wherewithal to conjure up a nation “looming out of an immemorial past”, as one writer proposed. The Government has decided to deal with the bricolage we are by proposing the goal of “One Guyana”.
The question of “national culture” is then placed on the agenda since culture in the widest sense of the word always becomes a trope for contestation for power in civil society as well as the state. This therefore precipitates a wider struggle than merely the “political”. Part of the problem is that ever since the beginning of European colonisation, the model of the “nation” imposed onto the Guyanese population – notwithstanding some rhetoric to the contrary – has been for our peoples to “assimilate”. This stance totally privileges “unity” over “diversity”, and the “one” in “One Guyana” unfortunately suggests this.
The premises of the assimilationists are that the people within a state must all share values and a common culture so that they would feel a sense of oneness – to better work towards achieving the “national” goals. The 64-thousand-dollar question, of course, is who decides on what constitutes the “national culture” into which everyone is to be assimilated?
There have been several variants of the assimilationist school, ranging from the demand that individuals entering such societies jettison their “old” cultures and practise the new to such individuals being exhorted to intermarry with others from the “mainstream” so that they physically disappear. The American “melting pot” remains the most famous example of the assimilationist school, even though their state, especially through its school system and its very explicit “citizenship” examinations, couched their values to be assimilated in ideological, rather than cultural” terms.
This was feasible because the WASP cultural ideal was so deeply imbedded in the state structure that there was no need to emphasise it. In reality, for American citizens to enjoy the full rights of citizenship, they had to conform to the “societal” culture – which was overwhelmingly British. The French, following Rousseau, have been the most faithful to the model in terms of explicitly demanding French culture as the standard.
The sad fact is that the assimilationist project has only worked at the price of great suffering, and even then, never very successfully. America has had to concede that instead of a “melting pot”, it has had to accept that it can only be a “salad bowl”. Ultimately, assimilation can only work under the extreme demand that there is complete physical intermixing between the various populations. But this is very unlikely: modern communications facilitate the dissemination and forging of ethnic bonds. Simultaneously, modern international norms of “equality” and “self-determination” of peoples militate against cultural hegemony being accepted by even “subordinate” groups.
It is rather ironic that multicultural societies are actually the norm in a world of “nation-states”. Individuals from the several cultural groups will have different experiences and will become different to the extent that culture shapes and gives meaning to our life plans. Significantly, the participation of members helps to change the culture itself. Out of this relationship between people and their cultures arises a sense of identity and belonging.
The Government’s “One Guyana” model has rejected this assimilationist view of society and has proposed that unity in diversity should be our watchword. The challenge is to find the right balance between the demands of the two concepts that is appropriate for our circumstances so as to have a political system that is cohesive and stable while facilitating the cultural aspirations of all our peoples. The Government is fostering an ideological notion of “Guyaneseness” for our nation based on equality of opportunity, which simultaneously incorporates all our present cultures.