Dear Editor,
It takes an outsider, like brother Anthony Pantlitz to raise the hard-charged question “Why are the churches so racially segregated in Guyana?” (SN, Dec 27). I think the answer is fairly straightforward. Like Mr Pantlitz I focus primarily on the Christian churches.
The churches are racially segregated in Guyana because the flock allows and brings all the ugliness of our sordid politics into the pews and before the altar. Instead of the primacy of Christ, there is the paramountcy of the party, be it PPP or PNC; this is the sanctum sanctorum. Worshippers cannot separate the dirty political legacy of the outside (race) from the sacredness of the inside, or the sacrosanct nature of Christ. They cannot and will not, and in so doing render themselves spiritual paralytics.
I have observed this, experienced this in the Roman Catholic Church; there are the ancient PNC high priests and priestesses and the new PPP holy rollers all bound by one thing and one thing only – their unreconstructed racial perceptions, or their ill-concealed racial inclinations. All the grizzled hostilities, the new surging triumphalism are just there for the looking. Where that great commandment of love of neighbour should transcend, there is the tawdriness of racial hypocrisy of the first order beneath the silken gowns and silkier smiles. The party comes first, the tribe comes a close second, and Jesus Christ comes in last, if at all in this scheme of things. His teachings are reduced to part of the personal cover and propaganda displays; the politesse of lip service with a Colgate sheen. The self-sacrifice of fearlessly taking a stand for right against wrong is largely unknown; the sacrifice for brother, for Christ, to build, to draw close to the breast as he did is but a concept mainly ignored, rarely practised. No one is fooled. All are divided further, and more deeply. There is the heat of physical nearness and the chill of watchful strangers; Jews and Samaritans on their knees in the synagogue here in Guyana.
My exposure to other Christian churches indicates the same profane story. The memory of Christ is superseded by the hero worship, the cult following, and the immortalizing of Burnham and Jagan. In some churches, there is a PPP faction and a PNC faction; this is the Jericho of Christianity in Guyana. We may succeed in putting Christ back in Christmas, but there is abject failure in removing the shabby racial antagonisms that have bedeviled us. In fact, I believe that it is liked and embraced, so sharp are the memories and animosities. Going farther afield, a Muslim friend has expressed serious disgust at the political antics perpetuated and permitted in the Masjid where he worships. The result is that he mostly distances himself from the organized gatherings.
Where are the church leaders in all of this? They are there with their platters of platitudes, their careful adherence to political correctness, and their steadfast refusal to imitate Christ and call things as they see them, and as they really are. They bow down to Pilate and Herod and Caesar, and they love it; they thrill to the ethnic rush. And at the end of it all, they pray to Mammon. The result is more hypocrisy, more despair, and more silos of segregation.
I daresay I know how the churches can get rid of segregation in the aisles. Start with the heart; emphasize the brotherhood of the races; practise what is taught; live the love of Christ. Isolate and work on the deceivers and dividers; do not give up. Do not bow down to any man or leader. Do not be recognized as the in-house favoured children of either emperor or senator. Do not compromise. Be about honour and Christian principle and spiritual ethics. It is this easy. If all of this is tried some time, then all the time, then results will follow.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
