Dear Editor,
I was about to embark on some research to see who exactly was Henri Tajfel referenced by Dr Jeffrey to support his case that there was some kind of “natural” Indian fear of Afro-Guyanese, when I thought better of that approach. While I am always out to learn something new I find statistical analyses and models of ethnic security theorists especially tedious, and to a non-social scientist like me, incomprehensible. After all, I am just an avid newspaper reader who has watched his country strangulate in the self-importance of the political class driven by an African and Indian so-called elite for too long. So I thought an approach that kept me batting in my crease might be better. I will rely on some oblique and hopefully not obtuse implications on his reference and also posit a thesis of my own.
The whole point of the micro-debate was Dr J’s contention that “the racial/ethnic struggle to hold and maintain political power … is not based overwhelmingly on the wish of any group to punish the other, but upon …fear, partly natural … will punish ‘us.’” My refutation of this thesis was that it was without basis. I am saying now entirely so. By that I mean that the motivation is not “overwhelmingly” “whelmingly” or “underwhelmingly” fear of being “punished” by the other but fear of something else – exclusion from the levers of power and the economic consequences of that exclusion. I am saying that this thesis of Dr J’s is thoroughly misconceived. In order to refute his leaning on Henri Tajfel with only my toes in the water as it were, I need to point out just a few facts.
This website (https:// explorable.com/ intergroup-discrimination) has a synopsis of Tajfel’s contribution. (I was overcome by curiosity and did peek after all!) As I suspected, it holds for all folks, not only Indians and Africans. The mere fact that it is of general application means that Guyanese of Chinese descent have good reason to fear a government of Amerindians (helped in 2048 by the burgeoning Brazilian population) who in line with the popular arguments will justifiably clamour for their turn of 56 years. Or that Portuguese Guyanese (had Peter D’Aguiar’s party remained active and vibrant) should be afraid of either Indians or Africans for that same reason pure and simple.
In other words, the theory is of general application for any two distinct subgroups in a society, and therefore loses its relevance to the Guyanese reality as far as explaining the specific behaviour of Indo-Guyanese or Afro-Guyanese towards each other.
But Dr J is not the only one who has made this theory the bedrock of their analysis of the Guyanese situation, but also several significant others. In repeating this fallacy, well-meaning analysts may have done more damage to inter-ethnic relations than they might have realized. After all, I believe a fellow named Goebbels said that if you repeat an untruth often enough people will eventually believe it. Watch that principle at work till May.
I want to float a better theory for understanding why the struggle is not driven by “fear of being punished” by the other. The Americans say “It’s the economy, stupid!” I think in Guyana “It’s the econo-me stupid” (Er, no disrespect, Dr J – just paraphrasing). By that I mean that Guyanese politics has never moved to “what can I do for Guyana.” It has been what Guyana can do for me and my tribe. That’s why what’s on the manifesto does not make any difference. The parties can do without publishing one.
So what about all those civil service and other jobs going to people of one type when the government changes from one to the other? Simple – jobs for the boys and girls. If the boys are mainly of one type what do we expect? Some call it discrimination and there is no doubt that some of it will be. But the overwhelming force operating will be political debts to pay and jobs for the boys. The econo-me. A colleague of mine visited the same state-run office in Brazil twice about two years apart. The entire staff had changed except for one apparently indispensable person. The government had also changed. That’s the way of third world countries especially. Jobs for the boys – the econo-me.
That is why the British brought us – to work so they could get rich. When they left, they left us to scramble over the pieces. Unfortunately, unlike Singapore and South Korea that had nothing to scramble over (and ended up with a razor-sharp focus on building something), we had sugar, rice, and bauxite. It was about who was going to replace backra. We have been scrambling ever since. Ravi Dev described it as state capture. After 60 years of the PPP and PNC we still have the continuing scramble over crumbs. We export nothing but the same rice – not a single bit of value added; the same sugar – not a value added. The bauxite has gone and the sugar is going too, it appears.
It is reported that at a meeting in the ’50s, one father of the nation actually showed his supporters the houses in which the estate managers were living and told them that they would soon be living in those houses. It was always about replacement wealth, not creation wealth. Any “punishment” is simply the effects of the devil taking the hindmost – Afro or Indo. Who cares about punishment from anybody? I want my friends to get into power so I can own a mansion or two. After all, goat en bite meh.
Yours faithfully,
F Collins
