By Hollis France
Hollis France teaches at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina
For many homeland and diasporic Guyanese the euphoric dynamic of the election of a representative government projects great rays of hope. That all Guyanese regardless of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation (to name a few) yearn for participatory inclusion in the economic drive is to be expected. The new coalition government has a massive job of reshaping Guyana’s development trajectories, so that a transformative agenda is pursued. The various groups responsible for exposing the inequities and injustices of the past must continue to be vigilant and not succumb to complacency by giving the new administration a free pass. Historical antecedents, the global economic context, and the sectional development practices of the past have all shaped a skewed developmental political and economic Guyanese landscape.
Of particular interest to me, in all of the political analysis during and after the political campaigning was concluded, is the ambivalent and ambiguous sentiments expressed by both political elites and the general populace towards our Amerindians sisters and brothers. There appears to be a general acceptance that Amerindian communities have been historically sidelined and marginalized in Guyanese political discourse, and therefore they need to be fully included and integrated into the mainstream fold. However, it is the terms on which this inclusiveness and integration is to take place that I think needs to be interrogated and problematized. Past administrations traditionally have taken the approach of inclusion and integration as somehow meaning, let’s convene a conference like the first 1969 meeting of Amerindian Captains and Councillors, or the contemporary National Toshaos Council (NTC), composed primarily of males often to the exclusion of Amerindian women folk, to somehow provide the optics of inclusion (these are intended to communicate that Amerindians do have voice in national matters). In fact, over time these bodies basically become repositories for governing administrations of the moment to practise their patron client politics to maintain political loyalties, and to discipline and regulate Amerindians to ensure that they do not challenge government policy that might not align with their interests.
The inclusion and integration optics further extend into the arena of consultation and free and prior consent whereby administrations give the appearance that by dispatching officials into Amerindian communities to notify them of policy initiatives such as the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) and the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), these actions in and of themselves become substitutes for consultation.
In many instances Amerindian communities are never at the decision-making tables where these policies are formulated, nor are they involved in the management regimes of various extractive industries that directly affect their livelihoods. They are simply asked to rubber stamp the policy initiatives emerging from “on high”- both at the global and national levels – and this in turn counts as Amerindian communities being “consulted.” The optics of inclusion and integration have fundamentally boiled down to a reproduction of paternalistic colonizing actions on the part of past administrations. The governing mentality thus still appears to remain in the realm of Amerindian communities being unable to think and act for themselves; therefore governing entities need to hold their hands to guide and protect them as they are integrated in the wider mainstream. This kind of politics while providing the appearance of inclusion does absolutely little to disrupt the inequalities and injustices confronted by Amerindians in Guyana.
Aspects of this governmentality was most evident to me in my recent research endeavors of navigating the bureaucratic maze of both the then Ministry of Amerindian Affairs (MoAA, recently renamed the Ministry of Indigenous People’s Affairs), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to acquire a permit to conduct research in the village of Wowetta located in Region 9. There are two aspects to the research granting process which I think reinforce the paternalistic governing mentality with regards to Amerindians: the marginalization of Amerindian villages from gaining access to part of the fee based revenue mechanism in place to acquire a research permit; and the issue of researchers entering villages being prohibited from buying and or offering alcohol to villagers.
As a social scientist I am required to pay approximately G$30,000 to the EPA to process my application for me to engage in research, and another G$30,000 for the actual permit to enter the village. Nowhere is a revenue sharing structure in place between Amerindian communities and the EPA.
In other words, while the first G$30,000 for the processing of the application may be seen as reasonable for the EPA to pocket all of those funds, given that it perhaps contributes towards the paying of staff salaries, what I find problematic is the failure to share even a small percentage of those permit revenue funds with Amerindians communities, who the EPA is supposedly protecting from external exploitation. In most instances Amerindian communities are unaware that the EPA even engages in this practice. Secondly, the MoAA, from which I am also required to obtain a permit to engage in research, states that one of the activities I am prohibited from engaging in as a researcher is buying and or offering alcohol to any villager. This provision to me, regardless of where one falls on the axis of imbibing alcohol among legal age adults, smacks of raw paternalism on the part of the state. Outsiders entering other communities in Guyana are not dictated to by law as to whether they can or can’t buy a drink for a community member. Equally the agency – the ability to act and think for themselves – of any Amerindian villager is removed by such a state dictate. Not even the democratically elected village council in Wowetta has such a requirement.
As the new administration settles down to the business of governing, I would appeal to them to carefully revisit and move beyond top-down approaches to policy initiatives regarding fairness, equity and inclusiveness of Amerindian communities, as exemplified by the policies above. This new administration and future administrations have to ensure that their interactions with Amerindian communities are not just eye pleasing photo taking opportunities, but are also constituted by empowering practices.
For the National Toshaos Council (NTC) to realize its full potential as an independent autonomous governing body advocating for Amerindian affairs, the administration might consider establishing an effectively functioning and properly funded secretariat that engages in its own research and hires its own consultants. This begins the process of placing Amerindians in a knowledgeable, well informed position of confronting top down policy approaches, while coming to the decision-making process armed with policies they consider beneficial to their communities. In the spirit of fairness, equity and inclusiveness, government entities like the EPA should also seek to involve Amerindian communities in the permit granting process, beyond researchers just obtaining a letter of permission from the village. A revenue sharing scheme could be instituted whereby Amerindian communities, in which researchers are entering, also receive a percentage of the permit revenue collected by the government. While a reconfiguration of the state apparatus is essential to moving beyond a politics of optics towards a politics of empowerment for Amerindian communities, it is equally imperative that our Amerindian sisters and brothers be allowed to determine on their own terms the nature of Amerindian –state relations without the traditional electioneering interference of political parties arriving with promises at election time and then failing to deliver on those promises. It is time to retire the “power over” practices and embrace a “power with” model that that provides limitless possibilities for Amerindian communities and engages their full and meaningful participation. If nothing else, this historic political shift has taught us all that the new administration along with future administrations can no longer afford to marginalize the voices, needs and aspirations of Amerindians if they are to govern in a manner that fully represents, respects and places at the centre Amerindian empowerment.
In Solidarity!
