Dear Editor,
I always admired Mr Eusi Kwayana’s simple but effective writing style and have grown to respect his seemingly firm grasp of important aspects of our contemporary political history. Admittedly, I learned a couple of new things from his illuminating letter, ‘Jagan and Rodney were not in competition and not opposed to each other,’ (SN, January 17), which enjoined the debate/discussion sparked by a letter from Mr Annan Boodram, ‘We must eschew the “us” versus “them” mentality in the New Year,’ (SN, December 31, 2009).
Unlike Mr Kwayana, who regretted being late with his letter, I procrastinated joining the debate/discussion because I long concluded that as long as persons approach the debate/discussion with predisposed positions there will be no easy reconciliation of the diverging opinions on our country’s ethnic-based politics. Clearly, too many folks either have an axe to grind or they have access to pockets of debatable information that still don’t tell the whole story. It is like a jigsaw puzzle but with pieces scattered all over the place. Even so, I won’t discourage anyone from discussing/debating the matter if it will lead to corrective action and racial unity as opposed to engaging in simple finger-pointing in the usual blame game.
For Guyanese who were born after the racial disturbances in 1964, all that these contentious ‘us’ versus ‘them’ debates/discussions may be doing is helping them understand why Guyana is so divided the way it is today, even though we achieved political independence in 1966 and adopted the motto: ‘One People, One Nation, One Destiny/.’ In my humble opinion, any discussion/debate on our racial problems should be able to trace our racial problems back to the era when the British colonialists brought in indentured servants from India in overwhelmingly large umbers numbers to serve as a counter balance to the then Black labour force of freed Black slaves who openly agitated for better working conditions on the plantations. My source on this is in the writings of the late Dr Walter Rodney who, incidentally, was hip to that and never joined the PPP or the PNC because of their race-baiting tactics for votes.
Ironically, the same British colonialists, in support of the Americans, played a critical role in the late ’50s and early ’60s to help undermine the Indian-led and supported PPP from establishing a communist government in Guyana by backing a Black Guyanese named Forbes Burnham who leaned on blacks for support and votes. Note carefully the role of foreigners as a major reason why Indians and Blacks grew to distrust each other, but unlike the plantation era when the motivation was for economic reasons, the motivation for the politically inspired ethnic-based fight of the late ’50s and early ’60s was about a much bigger fight on the global level: the Cold War that pitted the United States against the former Soviet Union for global supremacy and domination.
So while many today continue to blame the British and the Americans for collaborating with Burnham to oust the late Dr Cheddi Jagan from power, the local struggle for political power that triggered the ethnic divide or the ethnic divide that triggered the struggle for political power was merely capitalized on by the world’s two superpowers for world dominance, and while Jagan and Burnham rallied their respective ethnic support bases to gain political power, the West simply saw the then British Guiana as a prize worth fighting for. The West didn’t back Burnham because he or his support base was Black; it was a matter of political convenience for the West that the election machinery was manipulated to produce a result satisfactory to the West. If Burnham was not around, the West would have gone for the next best alternative, which could have been Peter d’Aguiar. Racial fighting between Blacks and Indians in Guyana was a means to an end for Western leaders back then, and so the ’60s were more than just about a race war; it was also about ideological war, and that needs to be accentuated in the equation of racial strife in Guyana.
Unfortunately for Jagan, after Burnham prevailed over him and the American-led West prevailed over the Soviet-led East in Guyana in 1964, the victory for the West and Burnham left a bitter taste in the mouths of mostly Indians who considered themselves PPP supporters. And even though many of them still blame the West and Burnham for Guyana’s racial strife and eventual socio-economic decline, many Indians who have a measure of sympathy for the PPP are more inclined to talk disparagingly about Burnham and the PNC than about the West for what transpired before and after 1964. Memo to all concerned: the PNC did not operate alone back in the ’60s.
Paradoxically, most Indians who supported Jagan and the PPP and fled Guyana, dating back to the ’60s, never ended up in any of the communist countries Jagan embraced back in the ’50s or ’60s; they fled Guyana only to end up in the USA, Britain and Canada, some of the countries that form the West – and this has to be an extremely powerful statement that while the racial strife in Guyana started on the plantations a couple of hundred years ago and was manipulated again by the West in the ’60s, Indians still chose to live in Western nations.
Another extremely powerful statement pertains to the utter rejection by Indians of the PPP and its communist ideology when they chose to live in Western nations. As much as Indians sympathize, love or support the PPP, as reflected by their traditional voting patterns, when it comes to the type of lifestyle they want to lead, it does not synchronize with the PPP’s communist ideology. And it is anyone’s guess what might have obtained in Guyana between Indians and the PPP had Jagan prevailed back in the ’60s in setting up a communist government, because as Mr Kwayana pointed out in his letter, Jagan was actually ready to take Guyana into the world’s communist bloc of nations and indoctrinate Guyanese workers with the teachings of Marx and Lenin. Would Indians have gone along with this? Maybe Jagan mistakenly felt that overwhelming Indian support for him and the PPP always translated into support for his embrace of the communist ideology that obviously is not in sync with Guyanese Indians or even Blacks.
Editor, I am of the firm belief that many Indians and Blacks born before or after the racial disturbances of 1964 have some idea of what happened back in the ’60s and would welcome a Truth and Reconciliation body to help start the healing process, but the demands of the future present an urgent need for political leaders capable of transcending the racial divide and lead our country in unity on the path to true progress. I believe they recognize that after 28 years of the PNC and 17 years of the PPP, neither party has delivered on unity or progress promises, and so they may now be amenable to tinkering with drastic change. Actually, based on the last elections in which a proportion of the PPP support base reportedly stayed home, and some Blacks who once supported the PNC cast their votes for the AFC, I wouldn’t be surprised if many Blacks and Indians quietly long for the day when they can finally have a government that addresses their ethnic insecurities and fears, rather than prey on these by exploiting them for narrow partisan gain. They want to know that the race problem that started with the colonialists will be solved by us working together under a united political leadership that refuses to pander to races for support and votes. And I believe I speak for the majority of Guyanese when I say we have no problem with a government that finally would reach out to countries in the West for investors to come and help Guyana achieve her potential.
For over 50 years Guyana had leaders whose ideological hang-ups shut out the West from Guyana’s development, even though the West is home to over half a million Guyanese and the West makes the biggest contribution to Guyana’s economy. Both Jagan and Burnham were anti-Western and anti-capitalist at heart, but where has their ideology gotten Guyana over half a century later? Both men copied racially divisive tactics from the colonialists and successfully exploited their ethnic support bases, but where have their racially divisive tactics gotten Guyana over half a century later? Their vision on ideology and race never gelled with the real needs of the people of Guyana, and as long as the PPP and PNC continue to see themselves as representing ethnic constituencies, we will continue to talk about ethnic divides and point fingers about events of the ’60s while the bright future we hope for continues to elude us. Frankly, the PPP and PNC are part of the problem and so they cannot ever be exclusively the solution in the name of shared governance, because neither ever truly represented the supposed ethnic bases.
Look, we may never know enough about the intricacies of our racial problems to make an informed decision about whom to really blame, but we ought to know enough about the past 50 years to make an informed decision about our future. We hold the key to the race issue in Guyana perpetrated by foreign forces and perpetuated by local forces. We can change the direction and tenor of the discourse. Hopefully there are enough mature Indian and Blacks who are sick and tired of the status quo and will go out again and vote real change in 2011 rather than keep supporting a failed system that first divides people along ethnic lines and then denies them their rights to hold their government accountable and responsible. Voters at least owe it to the next generation of Guyanese to help leave a better legacy for them by refusing to vote race in 2011 and choosing to vote for a government of all the people. Otherwise, the slothful pace of the country’s development and continued lack of unity will be on their conscience as children continue to suffer or run overseas when they grow up.
And speaking of running overseas, to many Guyanese at home, the President’s many overseas jaunts in search of economic relief for Guyana can serve as teachable moments, because if, as President, he must always be flying overseas in search of economic relief, it is only logical that when he does not deliver the people will play ‘follow the leader’ and run overseas for their own economic relief. If voters do not deliver change in 2011, Guyana may soon be a no-man’s land for both Indians and Blacks, and then what will become of our debate and discussion about our ethnic security dilemma? It’s time to wake up from this decades-long nightmare and start living our dreams as One People in One Nation and with One Destiny!
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
