Dear Editor,
Recently on my Facebook page I upbraided the Minister of Youth and Sports, who is Indian-Guyanese and a politician, about his careless assertion about black role models, vis-a-vis the black community. Now here we have an African Guyanese politician and political commentator making similarly careless racial assertions. I must hasten to say this disregard for racial sensitivity is not new in the Guyanese society. In this instance, Dr. David Hinds is someone I hold in high regard. Dr. Hinds is a brilliant Guyanese and Caribbean politician, political commentator, and a social and political activist. Therefore, Dr. Hinds is aware of the cross-cultural, cross-ethnic participation of Guyanese in social and economic activities. He understands the nature of the Guyanese society. So, Dr. Hinds must know how racially insensitive his recent comment is. There is a socio-cultural hybridity that has emerged in the Guyanese polity since colonialism placed various ethnic groups together. Ethnic groups participate in each other’s social and economic activities. This includes cooking and eating each other dishes.
It has become a popular thought in some sections of the African-Guyanese community to advise African-Guyanese to keep their spending power in black communities. This advice I vehemently disagree with, considering the nature of the Guyanese economic atmosphere. I rather suspect Dr. Hinds set out to make this point, albeit rather clumsily, when he uses as an example, an Indian-Guyanese woman making black pudding in a predominantly Indian-Guyanese village, and infer African-Guyanese should not support her or such type of business. To advise African-Guyanese to produce, and or support their community, is rather different from making an inference that African-Guyanese should not support an Indian Guya-nese woman who makes black pudding. Considering who this Indian-Guyanese woman is, I would suspect is a poor Guyanese fighting to make a living like most poor Guyanese, black or Indian. She is cooking a dish she knows how best to cook, and rather good at it, based on the support she receives, as Dr. Hinds would have witnessed. Guyanese, in general, have historically cooked each other’s ethnic dishes, and it has never been considered cultural appropriation. That’s the essence of the Guyanese-ness.
I have long argued that some politicians in Guyana operate as if they are representing an ethnic interest rather than a national interest. Anyone who is an executive within a national political party that aspires to national office, as Dr. David Hinds is, in the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), must consider the national interest first and foremost. That’s not to say that politicians cannot talk about racial issues. Dr. Hinds cannot separate his role as an executive in the WPA (historically a multi-ethnic political party) and that of an activist. Speech is important when one enters the political sphere. A social activist making a case for an ethnic interest is different from a politician. The beautiful eloquence of Dr. Walter Rodney is that he, as a pan-Africanist and historian, understood the conditions of working and non-working poor and their similar aspirations, regardless of racial identity. The idea of national party politics as I understand it, is to always seek to win the other side while maintaining the base. Politicians in Guyana must learn how to talk about racial issues without being seemingly divisive.
Sincerely,
Dennis Wiggins
