Dear Editor,
Is the class question relevant in Guyana or has the struggle for racial recognition become the paradigmatic form of political struggle? One wonders whether class interest as a medium of political mobilization should take precedence over race interest to ensure unity. The class question was relevant because the enemy was American and British imperialism and capitalist exploitation in a socialist analysis. Sadly today it seems the enemy is our Indian and African brothers and sisters. Poverty and exploitation invariably are seen through the spectacle of racial interest.
In Guyana we have always struggled with this class/race dilemma. This is so because the fathers of our independence, while espousing socialist principles saw the advantage of mobilizing along racial interest rather than class interest. For the leadership of one set of Guyanese there was an advantage in numbers in obtaining power, and for the leadership of another set of Guyanese there was an advantage in suppressing those numbers in order to maintain power. Moreover the race question in Guyana never offered an answer as to how to deal with the poverty in the society. It became a question of the wealth of one ethnic group and the poverty of another ethnic group, the marginalization of one ethnic group and the triumph of another. It never matters that a mass of poor Guyanese belonging to every ethnic group who has legitimate interest, struggles to exist. One wonders how it is that a poor Indian Guyanese or a poor African Guyanese or for that matter poor Guyanese can identify with a rich Indian or African whose main interest is how much profit is made. Did race matter when businesses illegally increased prices in the name of VAT thus increasing the cost of living for poor Guyanese across the nation? The question of how to forge the unity of the state in the interest of the prosperity of the state has eluded us. The disunity in the state offers the destruction of one ethnic group and the hegemony of the other ethnic group.
So what we are faced with today is that in a democratic epoch there is the continued struggle for racial recognition. Racial domination supplants exploitation as the fundamental injustice, and racial recognition displaces socio-economic redistribution as a remedy for those injustices and the goal for political struggle. In this struggle for recognition there is the formation of extremism on both sides of the ethnic divide. Each side feels threatened.
For example there are African Guyanese who continue to argue that Hinduism is responsible for their oppression, when in fact no evidence, historical or empirical, supports this claim. Some now feel threatened because Guyana has trade relations with India when this relationship with India existed since Guyana became independent under African Guyanese leadership, and both countries were members of the Non-Aligned Movement. No assessment is made regarding the benefit of this relationship to the country of Guyana; rather an unfounded assumption is made that this relationship would benefit Indian Guyanese only. Some have even found it threatening that India gives scholarships to members of its diaspora, when this is nothing new. Indigenous countries have always given support to members of their diaspora, including African countries. This is the basis of the Pan-African movement. No consideration is given to the fact that the recipients are Guyanese whose contribution to Guyana can be beneficial as a result of these scholarships given India’s leadership in global technological advancement.
Another issue is with the World Cup Cricket brochure. I learned in school that Guyana is a country of mixed heritage; that the various peoples who were forcibly brought or came to Guyana – indigenous Amerindians, Europeans, Africans, Indians, Portuguese, Chinese – brought with them rich cultures that fused to give Guyana its glorious cultural landscape, and therefore a country of mixed heritage; that the West Indies under whose banner cricket is played is a regional concept (Columbus being lost in his quest for the East Indies and was discovered in this region hence naming it the West Indies), and that the various peoples who now occupy this region are known as West Indians. So when our West Indies cricket team wins we in this region proudly sing “We are the champions, we are the West Indies.” Now the creators of this brochure are telling the world that that Indians in Guyana are not part of this West Indian heritage; that they are separate. Somehow in Guyana all the other groups originated in the West Indies and have no other heritage, but Indians in Guyana originated in India and therefore have Indian heritage. Thus Guyana is a country of West Indian heritage and Indian heritage. Could anyone see why this issue would be offensive to some? The race question has become a question of racial hegemony, and so insensitivity does not matter once it shows the superiority of one ethnic group over the other.
The struggle for racial recognition has consumed the society at the expense of development. It was Walter Rodney who said that Indian and African Guyanese should rally around their interest as producers in the Guyanese society rather than pursuing the falsity of racial superiority. Had Rodney been alive today he would be apoplectic that 27 years later and in a democratic existence our politics is still based on factionalizing, identity, and particularistic tendencies. What this does is that it undermines the benefit of production to the society, and as always the poor of all ethnic groups are the ones who suffer.
Class interest must become relevant and must replace racial interest as the medium of political mobilization. Building a social democracy must become the focus of any struggle rather than the struggle for a racial democracy.
Yours faithfully,
Dennis Wiggins
