It is more than just a democratic right. The right to speak embraces every reason: from the basic need to explain, inform and communicate to that of demanding rights and justice; and to expressing creativity through art forms.
There is a situation in Guyana, however, where the Indian Guyanese voice is expected to be silent; and communication, discussion and debate from our perspective are often viewed as racist and supremacist. An environment that discourages open debate – especially in a country where the racial divide is an overarching issue that affects our politics and society as a whole – can only be to everyone’s detriment.
The African Guyanese leadership has been speaking continually about the many wrongs done to their people by the PPP/C Administration. Facts and data do not matter in what is more of an emotional reaction to perceived wrongs. The omission in their narrative of the atrocities perpetrated on PPP supporters, Indian Guyanese – which include arson, rape, robbery, assault and murder – does appear to justify the violations, or dismiss them as a matter of no consequence.
Indian Guyanese are actually placed in the position of having to support the cries of marginalisation that are used to justify the atrocities committed on our community. And Africans find widespread support for such cries.
There is a universal acceptance that Africans are victims, and their victimhood appears to provide them with immunity from all criticism. That Africans still suffer racial prejudice and injustices in many societies is not in question. They do. But in a world that unconditionally accepts African victimhood as a fact, making the case for African Guyanese violence against Indian Guyanese is an uphill task.
Africans can always bring to bear the cases of racism that exist elsewhere, and which at times erupt into violence. Race riots in America and Britain are not uncommon occurrences. That pan-African condition resonates here as well, and provides a good measure of inbuilt justification whenever African leadership speak about the wrongs done to their people.
The allegations of being disempowered and that their majority numbers in the disciplined forces are meaningless, since there has never been a military coup, ignore all references to former President Desmond Hoyte’s public assurances to PNC supporters that the police and army are their “kith and kin”, and will therefore provide them with cover for the party’s then “slow fyah, more fyah” campaign.
That cover has been evident since the 1960s, and the public inquiry into the 1964 Wismar Massacre noted the very same collusion between the police and the African Guyanese perpetrators of that horror. That majority number is hardly meaningless.
Through their ethnic lenses, African Guyanese leadership conveniently ignore their attacks on Indian Guyanese; and this strategy of violence, learned in the 1960s from CIA operatives on how to grab power, continues to be the PNC’s modus operandi.
In the days following the May 2015 general elections, GECOM Chairman Steve Surujbally spoke publicly about the threats made in his hearing about “matches being lit”. Had the PNC not won, Georgetown would likely have gone up in flames – again – and African Guyanese leaders would have justified the violence before moving to erase it from their narrative of Guyana’s political history; just as the Wismar Massacre, the kick-down-the-door banditry of the Burnham era, and the more recent atrocities committed on Indian Guyanese by Buxton-centred “freedom fighters” never figure in their accounts.
As in the cultural sphere, it is as if Indian Guyanese lives do not matter, or that we must be continually apologetic for our presence. But if African Guyanese insist on presenting their case through ethnic lenses, they must accept that Indian Guyanese can do the same; especially since we have facts, figures and data that support our narrative of the violations inflicted on our community.
A few African Guyanese leaders attempt to gain credibility by denouncing Burnham’s many wrongs before pursuing the very same blame game that Burnham engaged in. Responsibility for every ill in their community belongs to the PPP, and their own actions are never factored in to their equation as to who and what could possibly be responsible for Guyana’s deep ethnic divide.
Indian Guyanese must continue to speak in order to ensure that the history being told is whole. Partisan narratives might bring comfort, but healing requires that everyone must be prepared to listen and understand that there are other points of view, others hurt, and there are accounts of other injustices done.
If current wrongs are justified in the name of past wrongs, Guyana will never move forward. A pathway to truth and reconciliation has never been more urgent.
