Dear Editor,
Ever so often a column or article appears in one of the newspapers extolling the virtues of diversity, and how important its mechanics are to us as a Guyanese society. Generally, the sentimental eruptions or philosophical waxing is triggered when African Guyanese either define what they perceive to be political and economic marginalization of their community, or attempt to take ownership of their destiny. Although the sentiments and advisories that form the body of these “awee a wan” missives cannot be disputed or should not be disregarded, I believe that many of us in the African Guyanese community read them with a wry smile on our lips. Over the past couple of days, according to news articles, “influential Guyanese Indians” are wending their way to a Diasporic assembly in India, a cultural renaissance connecting the descendants of indentureship and voluntary emigration with their brothers and sisters on the sub-continent for an ethnic but commendable tete a tete. The wry smile on our lips as we contemplate these newspaper articles and columns is most often a physical expression of the thought, “wouldn’t it be great if “our” efforts at coming together weren’t second guessed at to the extent. They generally are, and were received with the same sort of aplomb that greets this Diasporic assemblage of the beautiful and enterprising fruits of India. But perhaps, we are asking for too much.
I have always been an ardent proponent of racial and ethnic diversity. It is something that comes naturally. After all, Africans in the Diaspora, due to our unique history, represent a mosaic of cultural experiences ranging from that associated with the most “prim and proper”, “stiff upper lip”, and “what ho” public school and cricket nurturings compliments of our British rulers, to that of the early lifestyle and cultural practices and mores of the Garifunas or Garinagus, who were forcibly removed from St Vincent to mainland South America two hundred plus years ago. In my sometimes complicated manner of making a point I am merely advancing the argument that extolling the importance of cultural diversity to the descendants of those whose history mirrors the essence of such, is akin to preaching on the importance of fossil fuel to the inhabitants of the Middle Eastern Gulf States. Diversity, Sirs and Madams, represents the total embodiment of our several cultural awarenesses. And please be a little bit more tolerant of innovative usage of this language we are forced to speak and write in.
The argument for diversity in Guyana, where its importance to the wellness of our nation cannot be overstated, has to move beyond the facetious and pandering into a genuine and honest appraisal of prejudice and intolerance and its origins. The basis for racial and ethnic prejudice comes from myths and ill-conceived notions that a particular group is superior to another because of how they look. And the reality of life and this world is that the physical appearance of humans is valued on the basis of their distance away from the end of the continuum where black African is most evident, to that side where white European is most congregated. Pretending that Guyana somehow escaped this influence is both comical and dishonest. It defined our existence well into the 1960s, and its residue permeates even the manner in which we publicly deal with the subject today. Because those most likely to play down or ignore this one thing that is shared worldwide across cultures and across religions, always seem to be those who by appearance are furthest away from blackness. Whether they do so consciously or whether the longevity and pervasiveness of this four to five hundred year old doctrine renders them as much victims of its influence as its targets is arguable. That it is a fact of life in this world is not.
Now don’t get me wrong here please. I am not for one instant making an argument that Africans do not act out their prejudices, and that such acting out is defensible or excusable. I have never shirked the responsibility of taking ownership for the negative that emanates from my community, and I counsel this to all and sundry.
But there are no hereditary cultural doctrines in African ancestry that propagate superiority based on race and or ethnicity. So Africans who travel that road are not being reflective of either their continental ancestry or their Diasporic ancestry. They would just be making it up as they go along. The most revered and loved leaders emanating from the African family on the continent and in the Diaspora are Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.
That they are held in such high regard by us should be illumination to even the most obtuse that the shared message in their activism is one we cherish also.
Larry West, author of the book, Our Common African Geneses, closes his work with an “Authors Apologia”. Reflecting on the racial aspects in which Christian History has traditionally been portrayed he remarked: “I knew that the Christianity that I was raised in was sick, but I didn’t know why. I knew that the ‘white’ society that I was born into was sick, but I didn’t know why. I wandered in the wilderness for forty years until I met and communed with the sons and daughters of Ham-black people. Then and there I was exposed to a broader and deeper culture, one that was very old, one that went back to the roots of humanity and civilization. I then started to unravel the myth of white historical predominance. In case you haven’t caught on by now, I am white”.
African Guyanese and others have been wandering in this same wilderness for far too long. It is a wilderness of mindset, of thinking, of listening and paying too much attention to those who are perpetually critical of others cleaning their houses even as they are occupied with cleaning their own. The most positive thing we can do for our country in general and ourselves in particular is to become as conscious and as honest about our predicament as Larry West did with his. Cultural universality is as natural to Africans as living and breathing, and we must never be uncomfortable with this fact. At the same time we must become invigoratingly involved in communing with the sons and daughters of Ham, for our goal is to make a better community, to make a better Guyana, and to make a better world. Selah.
Yours faithfully,
Robin Williams
