Dear Editor,
Since the suspension of the constitution in colonial Guiana, 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 succour within defined race/racist blocs. We have also watched ruefully as policies abandon the people at large thus stagnating the nation as a whole into a state of perpetual misery.
Moses Nagamootoo observes in his speech to the present Parliament that a certain curse has been the scourge to progress. He states: “The Elections of November 28, 2011 have shown that race rules in Guyana, and we cannot hide that fact that there is racial polarisation, racial division and racial mobilization, which is being exploited even to this day as I speak.“
However, authentic evidence suggests that Guyanese have become tired of this race-based 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 common/community values. This idea embraces the view that we share responsibility for each other, that our fates are linked and interlinked. Embracing such 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 neighbour as you love yourself, common/community values are moral beliefs, a practical reality, a healthy destiny to mould.
Through time, those committed to social justice have always promoted a culture of community values. However, we Guyanese, in an increasingly race-based, 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. Our commentators are very good at finding faults without offering solutions.
Incidentally, let me underline this visible truth: our country has long understood and honoured the idea of common/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. Why not now? We have achieved gallantly when we stick together and together attack the common enemy. 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 in instruments of state (à la Madramootoo) show that our country, across-board, passionately values community and collective responsibility. But Guyanese have also long valued the ideal of the rugged individual and the ‘up-by-the-bootstraps‘ 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.
Independent Guyana has lost its virginity to Mephistopheles. Governments have introduced and maintained a top-down course of governance beginning at independence. In our view, that crafty, top-down course has to be reversed. We believe that civil society is the real engine for social development; it needs to be awakened from its lethal slumber. Therefore, here lies the essence of the task ahead: civil 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 weighty baggage within the society and between groups. Each flirts with the thought that its ‘culture’ is pure and, therefore, better. Let’s recognize this palpable, but painful, truth: electoral politics has institutionalized racial party attachments thereby alienating people from home and family, from brother and brother, from sister and sister, from themselves and their true identity. It’s an indictment that grownups have not grown up, and cannot recognize this weighty baggage – it’s a shame!
In similar fashion all these culture groups conjure up halcyon deeds achieved by their forebears, from tall tales to fairy tales. In spasms of delusions of grandeur they paint wonderful relatives of theirs from all parts of the world even from mythical space; they fondly recall wispy creatures from ages beyond the dawn of time. Imaginations run amok as this and that unction flavours the fiery urn as cash flows to the sacrificial plate. That’s the essence of culture which some of our bigots claim is worthy for preservation in the hallowed halls of time. Mahatma Gandhi critiquing such a narrow view of culture noted, “If I can’t swim in tradition, I’ll sink in it.” And rather than sink in tradition, Martin Luther King dug deeply into his people’s psyche, defined an appropriate strategy and walked with them to the elusive ballot box.
Vijay Prashad, Professor and culture critic at Trinity College, Connecticut 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.“ (My emphasis)
Culture is not the séance of ossified rituals; culture resides in a fluid paradigm of living parts created by an innovative, unshackled people. It informs as it absorbs the best from one era and transfers its efficacy as it creates and recreates itself. Consider Prasad above: “Culture finds within it the potential for liberation and change.“ In other words, I propose that every culture is rich – its music, religion, cuisine, literature, theatre, art, drama, social and other mores, etc – and the greater the number of cultivated groups the richer the tapestry within plural societies. Following Columbia’s Manning Marable, Justin Podur, author and journalist, told the World Forum (2003) that “unequal racial universes” cannot, for instance, successfully work towards “restitution for which the history of racism has left us.“ Podur summarizes: Marable’s formulation is “valid globally. The demand for Black Reparations, like the demand for reparations for the Developing 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 the wise lesson that criticizing the other group/s and their culture is a well-tested instrument for failure. But in Guyana, this is precisely what is being fostered. Here we find shamans and mountebanks in certain high places, from the topmost rungs of the educational ladder to the gun-toting lesser miscreants, all hired mercenaries, working feverishly through their captive media, to stall progress for the majority in the interest of the few. To break that deadlock, society has to be re-ordered. We have to consciously recreate a focused Guyanese culture, not by denigrating the better elements of the past but by using that past as a prop and not an impediment. In this cultural/social setting, we recall Nelson Mandela who once observed that there must be a “few good persons“ left in the society. This being so, consider Madramootoo: “What are the mechanisms by which we can develop a political culture that will not go back to where we came from – a political culture that has been rife with division, animosity, suspicion and even hatred? We cannot go back there.“
Politics and a top-down political culture are fuelled by race, that is by hate, says the good gentleman – that, indeed, was Cheddi’s mantra. And, in my considerable experience, I find that the energy utilized for hatred is much heavier than that utilized for its bottom-up opposite – love. Moses Nagamootoo would have the singular honour as a Parliamentarian to pass the most progressive laws ever were he to address the “racial” question. The term race has had its usefulness for too long. It is demeaning and should be expunged from the lexicon of our country. Race is not a characteristic of a species. And as a criminal lawyer he should propose stringent penalties for those who continue the usage of the term whether in private or in institutions of state. If he were to engage himself in such an endeavour he could then consider himself as having scaled the mountain top and seen the light of the future. He will have created a certain legacy.
We either float together in the future or we shall be consumed by “a political culture that has been rife with division, animosity, suspicion and even hatred.”
Yours faithfully,
Kenneth Persaud
