Dear Editor,
Since Independence, the theme of racism/ethnicity has dominated our national dialogue and our common culture. In the service of some few it has served well so that under the guise of personal success, this narrative often celebrates individual success as evidence for national well-being. But for the many, that routine has fractured society to the extent that individuals are cocooned into finding succor within defined race/racist blocs. We have also watched ruefully as race-based policies have been accentuated thus stagnating the nation as a whole into a state of perpetual misery.
However, authentic evidence suggests that Guyanese have become tired of this racist approach to policy and to life in general. Signs indicate that the country is ready for a new inclusive vision and a new approach towards positive solutions.
Central to this vision, as well as to the solution, is the notion of Community Values. This idea embraces the view that we share responsibility for each other, that our fates are linked and interlinked. Embracing Community Values means appreciating that we prosper as individuals, and as a people, that is, when our politics and policies reflect that we’re all in it together. Whether described as interconnection, mutual responsibility, or loving your neighbor as you love yourself, Community Values are moral beliefs, a practical reality, a healthy destiny to mould.
Culture of Individualism vs Culture of Community
Through time and geographical space, history teaches that those committed to social justice have always promoted a culture of Community Values. However, we Guyanese, in an increasingly racist, isolationist huddling, have often lost the idea of championing values in the scramble to react against specific, issue-based threats. But, some of us believe, it’s time we focus on a new culture in political conversation and everyday living. It’s time we turn our attention to our long history of working collectively, standing up for each other, and upholding the common good. There’s virtue in working for, rather than against, something.
Incidentally, our country has long understood and honored the idea of Community Values. At times, we embraced the idea of six different peoples uniting to accomplish a common goal. We’ve embraced it magnificently in our efforts to meet common challenges like confronting the mighty British Empire and winning the democratic vote for our entire nation under the strategic Jagan/Burnham leadership of half a century ago. We have achieved gallantly when we stick together – and attack together – we could in this case the scourge of racism. This story is genetically embodied in our national motto of “One People, One Nation, One Destiny”.
In embracing common tasks collectively, our culture rejects the selfish pursuit of individual interests at the expense of others. Popular rejection of the greedy drug lord, the marauding gangs of slaughter, the corrupt functionaries and other instruments of State show that our country, cross-board, passionately values community and collective responsibility.
But Guyanese have also long valued the ideal of the rugged individual and the “up-by-the-boot-straps” narrative. In this story the lone striver conquers daunting challenges apparently with no help from anyone. But, this narrative, not always accurate, carries a lot of weight in our society. Over the last several decades, however, the political/social events visibly demonstrate the futility of such a vision.
Top-down vs Bottom-up approach
Earlier on, independent Guyana lost its virginity to Mephistopheles, the devil. That course introduced and maintained a top-down mode of governance. In our view, that crafty, top-down course has failed and has brought us to the abyss which faces us at this time. It has to be reversed. We believe that Civic society is the real engine for social development; it needs to be re-awakened from its lethal slumber. Therefore, here lies the essence of the task ahead: civic society needs to be transformed into a viable force, into a bottom-up force, into a force strengthened by the progressive elements which inhere in each social grouping be it ideological, religious, race, trade union, gender, whatever.
But we are acutely aware that there is a weighty baggage within the society and between groups. Each flirts with the thought that its ‘culture’ is pure and, therefore, better. Although all Guyanese since birth, they are alienated from their home. I recall the little eight year old girl as reported by Red Thread after Lusignan. She implored her parents to take her to another country. Plaintively, and with deep passion, she uses the double negative in her entreaty: “I do not want to live in this country no more”, she laments. If that poignancy does not bring tears to one’s eyes I do not know what will. However, it’s an indictment that grownups have failed her, an indictment they cannot escape – and the shame!
But, the child’s trauma is symptomatic of the wider society’s. People try to identify with cultures alien to them, to groups from far off places, even from mythical space. They conjure up halcyon deeds achieved by their “forebears”. And, they have their allies: the shamans and the mountebanks. An unstable situation is fruitful ground for these deviant actors to do well. These pundits of wisdom in Guyana inhabit the prestigious positions as leaders of this or that group; and some, hired mercenaries, render lofty expositions from the topmost rungs of the educational hierarchy. With such powerful reinforcement who can blame a rudderless people for dancing to the tune of being numero uno.
Culture: impediment vs prop
In this respect, one recalls the tremendous opposition meted out to the Indian revolutionary and eventual seer, Mohandas Gandhi. His detractors, planted firmly in a fundamentalist tradition, accused him of uprooting himself from those mighty pillars of the past. Being a direct beneficiary of that past, he was caught in a serious dilemma. But, Gandhi, being the visionary that he was, understood how a proud, strong past informs a strong, proud future. Not floored, therefore, Gandhi declared: “If I can’t swim in tradition, I’ll sink in it.” And, rather than sink in tradition, Martin Luther King, the Black Civil Rights Leader of the United States, dug deeply into his people’s psyche, defined their strength, devised a dynamic strategy – and walked triumphantly with his people to the hitherto elusive ballot box.
Vijay Prashad, Professor and Culture Critic at Trinity College, Conn. asks rhetorically:
Are cultures discrete and bounded? Do cultures have a history or are they static? Who defines the boundaries of culture or allows for change? Do cultures leak into each other? … To respect the fetish of culture assumes that one wants to enshrine it in the museum of humankind rather than find within it the potential for liberation and for change. We’d have to accept homophobia and sexism, class cruelty and racism, all in the service of being respectful to someone’s perverse definition of culture.
Positive culture is not the séance involving aged, ossified rituals overseered by purveyors of class or tribe or caste idiosyncracies, it resides in a fluid paradigm of living parts, it’s created by innovative, motivated actors. It absorbs the best from one era and transfers its efficacy as it creates and recreates itself. Every culture is rich – its music, literature, theater, art, drama, religion, cuisine, etc. Plural societies, like ours, have a rich infrastructure on which to build a healthy Guyanese edifice. It’s a matter of each group shining in its beauty and develop its better characteristics – and do not allow itself to cower under the fear of offending any other. The education system and the media, twin bulwarks for democratic stability, need a new orientation to reflect a new reality. The theme of racism/ethnicity which has dominated our national dialogue and our common culture for so long needs an overhaul. Societies like ours have the potential for weaving a colorful quilt of rich tapestry. We have to consciously recreate a focussed Guyanese culture, not by denigrating the better elements of the past but by using that past as a prop and not an impediment.
Difficult tasks: scare vs challenge
A forward looking agenda beckons young countries, like Guyana, to efficiently try solving the most daunting tasks. Speaking to the World Social Forum (2003), Justin Podur, author and journalist, following Columbia’s Manning Marable’s thesis suggested that “unequal racial universes” cannot successfully work towards ‘restitution for which the history of racism has left us’. Podur summarises: Marable’s formulation is ‘valid globally. The demand for Black Reparations, like the demand for reparations for the 3rd world, is a demand to unmake the plunder that the poor have suffered over centuries and bring about equality. In order to win restitution, it will be necessary to build solidarity across lines of nation, culture and color”.
Experience teaches a wise lesson: criticizing other group/s and their culture is a well tested instrument for failure; it is valuable time spent on futility. And Guyana wears its pervert racist badge as a millstone around its neck. In such a cultural/social setting, we recall Nelson Mandela who once observed that there must always be a ‘few good persons’ left in the society. This being so, the subscribers to this letter, having been at work for a while, now invite others on board, those who feel that this society needs a new direction and a novel vision, one of Community Values. For starters please make contact: Email: persaudkaypers@gmail.com, or in Guyana, phone: 698-9982. We have already developed the architecture on which civic society can participate. It now needs all hands on deck, heads above the fray, and boots on the ground. Of course, we’ll relish sharp critiques both pro and con to this bare boned, rather wobbly presentation. One one dutty buil’ dam, so:
Compatriots, we either float together or we shall all perish piece-by-piece.
Yours faithfully,
Kenneth Persaud, New York;
M. Rahman, London and Guyana.
