I keep jottings of various things I come across in communications with persons or in various readings or observations. It’s a practice from years ago, purely as a reminder of ideas, starting in my days in Canada, and it’s often fascinating to go back to those scribblings and to be vividly struck by what was in front of me then compared to now. Sometimes, the contrasts are comical; more often 
than not they’re intriguing; some are troubling. In the latter category, one I noticed recently is a reference to Carifesta and relates to an email with a Guyanese intellectual friend working in the arts in the USA. In the note, several years ago, he was arguing strongly for the embrace of Carifesta, as an agent for healing the ethnic rift in Guyana. As I said to him at the time: “On your recent email about Carifesta, I have to say that while I agree with you on the notion of inclusiveness, I think it’s wishful thinking to see Carifesta as the agent for that. This cultural divide that we have in Guyana is not unique to us. The world is full of examples of it (the Middle East and Africa are but two current examples) and the condition is so powerful and so wide-ranging that it defeats all efforts to quell it. It was what broke Pakistan off from India, and then Bangaldesh off from Pakistan, and now another break off from Bangladesh looms. Right now, we have the prospect of Iraq splintering into three countries ‒ Sunni, Shiite and Kurd ‒ because of it, with the Iraqis killing each other in that turmoil.”
The propulsion for the above is that today I was reading that email exchange with my friend in the same week that healing the ethnic divide was again in the news here with Demerara Waves reporting that at a recent event in the USA one of the speakers reiterated that one of the goals of the new government was to bring an end to racial bickering. “No longer will racial division, antagonism be permitted to continue,” the paper quoted her as saying. Last month here at home we have the esteemed Eusi Kwayana saying (I hope my notes are accurate), “Speaking for myself, if we are to develop as a liberated people, we need a long-term pact, or understanding morally binding, of agreement and mutual solidarity and respect on differences of race, youth and age, gender and orientation, religion, class, occupation, disability, and other differences that people bring to light.”
Also from last month, there was the heartfelt musing from columnist Alan Fenty, “Can you be Guyanese – spiritually and culturally – without being Indian, African, European or Chinese?” I answered Alan saying, “Of course not. Guyana is made up of all these strands from other places, plus the Amerindian one, so to be truly Guyanese you have to see all those strands as part of you. You can’t pick and choose which strand you embrace or reject; it is your legacy. Rejection of any part is rejection of part of yourself.”
In short, the notion is very clearly and continually about: we must bring an end to our racial divisions and animosities, but while the concept is clearly expressed, just as clearly missing is how to orchestrate this shift. There is frankly very little evidence in Guyana that gives one hope for inclusiveness between the two dominant groupings here to take place across the board. If we’re not seeing that end to ethnic choices in business, in families, in recreation, even at free public functions such as the recent flag-raising ceremony at the revamped D’Urban Park, what is the basis for thinking we can legislate it or propel it?
I agree that we have to, as Jesse Jackson in the US put it, “keep hope alive”, but we also have to take our heads out of the sand and assess the matter objectively. When social movements take hold, they are signalled by grass roots organizations springing up to achieve the end – civil rights; women’s equality; smoking bans; drug abuse. If similar voluntary social units have formed here working for an end to ethnic division, they remain invisible to me and to the population at large. It is an absence with clear portents.
Tell me with your head, not your heart, where you see evidence that the resistance to amalgamation will die out. Everywhere I look in the world I see it pervasive and rabid. Right now, for example, in the USA, with all the efforts and riches and sophisticated minds, and assertions of superiority, they’re still struggling with entrenched racism in that so-called “salad bowl culture”. We talk continuously about the urgency of the change, but when you ask how do we make this happen, people shrug their shoulders and sidle away; we’re not moving the rhetoric from ‘what’ to ‘how’.
In that absence, I am aware of only the suggestion from Pomeroon native and sports specialist Reds Perreira. To bridge the ethnic gap, Reds is proposing a friendly game of cricket between two teams – one captained by Guyana’s Prime Minister and the other led by our current Leader of the Opposition, with two teams of equal strength.
The proposal is to hold the match at Bourda, making it accessible to all, and it should be carried live on radio or television. Reds says, “It is my belief that this friendly game can be helpful in creating social cohesion; once both leaders are in support, it can attract a full house with the proceeds going to a number of charities.”
Reds Perreira’s suggestion, which I believe has been relayed to the cricket authorities here, is the only one to surface up to now with a concrete proposal to help improve our racial climate. It’s something that would cost very little to produce, appears likely to raise some money for charity, and we have nothing to lose by making it happen.
It must be faced, however, that the barricades we are seeking to break down here are formidable creations, in existence for hundreds of years, and surfacing in virtually every nation on earth. As this column is being written, in what is often proclaimed as ‘God’s country’, the leading Republican candidate for President of the USA is publicly disparaging Mexicans and other people of Latin origin, as well as Muslims, and significantly, despite those racist statements, he has been picked by Republican voters as the man they want in the White House.
Everywhere one looks we see the racial barriers being manned and very few walls coming down. Mankind thinks he’s so clever with his scientific achievements and his machines, and his lofty stances, but socially we’re largely a narrow-minded set of people huddling in groups and scared to death of ‘those others’.
