The Thursday before last President Irfaan Ali went before Parliament and told his party MPs, “The key word of my Government is ‘oneness.’” Whatever that means. An either puzzled or more likely disinterested citizenry learnt that the government intended to establish a One Guyana Commission so they would no longer, it was maintained, be held ransom to partisan politics and partisan ambition. “It is time to set those two impostors aside,” said the head of state, “and to embrace in their place the virtuous cause of patriotic duty.”
Guyanese are no strangers to nebulous notions promoted by their politicians, and many of them no doubt cast a cynical eye on this latest contribution to the public discourse. Most citizens, if not all of them, would be offended by any suggestion they are not patriotic; they have no doubts about where they stand in relation to foreign states, and within the ambit of the nation they would consider their goals for the country patriotic in so far as they want the best for it. It is just that a substantial number of them, including President Ali’s own supporters, consider that the way to achieve this is through what he would call partisan means. In other words, patriotism and partisanship are not opposite ends of the same pole; they each have their own distinct matrices.
The Commission which will be established by an Act of Parliament will be led by Prime Minister Mark Phillips, and its purpose, said the head of state, would be to identify practical steps to fuse our ‘one’ society, encompassing and respecting the diversity from which our “oneness” originates. The least that can be said about this is that it sounds like a contradiction in terms. Diversity in and of itself will not generate ‘oneness’. That kind of ‘unity’ normally presupposes a common foundation for the society and greater homogeneity than is evident here.
The practical steps the President identified included the institutional strengthening of the Ethnic Relations Commission to make it more effective, although he did not specify the nature of the measures he had in mind to achieve this. While the ERC clearly needs reform, particularly in terms of its membership, it might be remarked that it has possibly always been expected to perform in a way it was never structured to do. Suffice it to say that kind of body is best suited to address cases of individual or group discrimination and instances of hate speech. It is not designed – and should not be – to manage large-scale issues of ethnic antagonism or manage ‘national conversations’ on racial issues, although it can contribute to them. As has been reported, it has recently brought cases under the Racial Hostility Act, a law which has been sleeping undisturbed on our statute books for years. At least that is a move in the right direction.
In addition to that, the President informed the National Assembly that the Commission would also deal with education concerning the nation’s history, religions and how to ensure equal opportunities for education, employment and entrepreneurship. This is all a bit mysterious. Ensuring equal opportunities for education and employment in the public sector, at least, has always been a standard function of government, while the areas of private hiring and entrepreneurship are certainly not best addressed by a One Guyana Commission.
Then there is education concerning the nation’s history. One presumes the President is referring to more recent modern history, since one cannot imagine he sees any problem with the teaching of slavery and indentureship. Government in the form of commissions and the like should not be seeking to impose a uniform account of our past either within the schools or outside them. It is only autocratic regimes which inflict official histories which cannot be challenged on their populations. Freedom of historical thought is a free speech issue, and as for what goes into the schools, that should be left to the professionals, as it is at the moment. How historical concepts and events are communicated will in any case vary according to the age group.
And as for religions, information on these has been taught in the classroom and conveyed through various vehicles outside of it for years. It is one area where we have achieved a measure of tolerance, with citizens at one level or another participating in Christmas, Diwali and Phagwah, and having a good grasp, at least, of the importance of Ramadan, if not the two Muslim holidays. Why the head of state should have thought it necessary to raise it in the context of the Commission is an enigma.
President Ali went on to describe the essential character of his government’s vision as “inclusion”, and emphasised that he was anxious to pursue partnerships with representative bodies in the governance of One Guyana. He said he wanted “regular high-level consultations” with them to address key issues, as well as “directly engage communities and community leaders across every village in building trust and deepening relationships …”
No one will have any quarrel about consultations and partnerships with civil society on important matters, although there might be reservations about going into every village to ‘deepen relationships’, always depending on what is involved here, and that, it must be said, was not at all clear.
What one doesn’t want is government engaging itself in arrangements to address ethnic issues at the community level; inter-racial relationships and stresses outside the political context need to be handled by the residents of a village or area themselves. The intrusion of government will only deform the exchanges and introduce an element which would make it more difficult for inhabitants to come to an understanding or work out a modus vivendi, not less so.
It is as if President Ali and his government are credulous enough to believe that they can solve the ethnic divide without confronting the one department where they actually do have real influence, and against a backdrop where ethnic tensions regularly come to the surface. No one, except the PPP it seems, needs to be told that that department is politics. Yet for all the patter about partnerships, not a word was said about one with the opposition. As our report mentioned, the only partnerships extended by the administration to date have gone to the Guyanese diaspora and companies licensed to operate in the oil and gas sector.
One can only wonder what the government is thinking. Surely after half a century it knows that the two major parties have always been more than simple political entities. They have also had a social function, giving advice and assistance to members of their constituencies who have problems with officials or some legal difficulty, or have been impeded by a public requirement or other issue. The opposition and its constituency will not evaporate because President Ali decides he wants to bypass them. If he wants to make progress on the ethnic front, therefore, he has to involve the opposition in a range of discussions on all kinds of matters, from development policy to political disagreements to reducing stress in the society, etc, otherwise he will be wasting his time.
Two days after his Commission revelations to Parliament, the head of state announced an initiative to cultivate cohesion among the ECD communities of Lusignan, Enterprise, Buxton, Foulis and Golden Grove, with a view to unifying citizens there. He described it as a pilot scheme, and designated it a ‘Corridor of Unity and Oneness’, assuring the residents there was no political motive. The President materialised in the various communities with a panoply of Ministers in tow, who, he said, would form the Management Group for the corridor. One could only wonder if there weren’t more pressing matters for the AG and Minister of Foreign Affairs especially, to give their attention to.
In Buxton President Ali said the initiative would begin with sports and cultural development, and adverted to sport being a unifying medium. Old hands will know that we have seen this one before. “Today is the beginning of a journey that will take us positively forward … we have the ability to live with each other, let us begin,” he told his listeners. The ever practically minded Buxtonians, however, had a more realistic approach raising matters such as access to housing and improving the grounds. The head of state was accommodating, pledging his government’s involvement in supporting the youths in access scholarships and jobs, including in the construction sector, and providing avenues to technical-vocational programmes, among other things.
All one can say about this is that these are the kinds of things governments are normally supposed to do, and it surely doesn’t need a Corridor of Unity and Oneness to achieve it. An administration which consults with the opposition as well as civil society, reduces its imprint in the public space, forgoes loyalty in favour of merit, creates autonomous institutions, commits to an independent judiciary and reform of the justice system, is serious about tackling corruption in its own ranks as well as historical cases, is fair in its dealings with all groups and emphasises efficiency, is bound to get some incidental side benefits in terms of a reduction in ethnic stress.
The One Guyana Commission and the Management Group for the Corridor are just more bureaucratic impositions on the society which are unnecessary and will achieve nothing substantial. And as for Prime Minister Mark Phillips, he is faced with a thankless task.