Dear Editor,
There is a booklet circulating on the internet called “One Guyana: Excerpts from Glimpses of a Global Life” by Shridath Ramphal. The link: http://sirshridathramphal.com/domain/index.htm
The “One Guyana” ideology is being promoted by the PPP Government as the blueprint for our country’s future and takes the position that our diversity of race, religions and cultures are problematic when these differences lead us to abandon the oneness of being Guyanese. It’s not a new ideology nor new to hear it from Sir Shridath who was one of the earliest collaborators of President Forbes Burnham as Burnham set about to establish the PNC dictatorship which promoted miscegenation as the solution to Guyana’s racial division.
Miscegenation – the ideology of creating a Mixed race – is a simpleminded approach to a serious issue and is not pursued anywhere in the world as a solution to ethnic or cultural divisions. The solution always lies, rather, in establishing policies that build coalitions based on trust and respect among peoples, and best practices that encourage working together to uplift every community equitably.
When people choose freely to marry someone of another race or religion that is a personal matter. However, it is a matter for serious national discourse when this becomes a state sponsored policy aimed at whole populations.
The loser in this Mixed race assimilation is always the minority group or groups. In Guyana, despite our numerical majority, Indians are viewed as a minority since it is African Guyanese, African Caribbean, and the Judaeo-Christian ethos that are culturally dominant and fully accepted as the status quo.
Burnham’s attempt to mould the nation according to his ideology was not the first attempt to colonise the Indian mind. That was done by the British imperialists from the time we arrived here in 1838 through an aggressive campaign aimed at Christianising us. Our fore-parents very bravely and with great dignity stood their ground because they believed that their religions, beliefs, traditions and culture were as good as anyone else’s.
We survived the coloniser’s efforts and Burnham’s attempt at moulding us and there is now another campaign launched by the PPP Government with the very same goal in mind. It is called “One Guyana” and I would agree that the oneness ideology is very seductive because of its very simple-mindedness. Unfortunately, the world is raced, has a myriad of beliefs, and is full of stubborn people like our fore-parents. Any quarrel with the fact that the world is raced and comprises groups of different faiths and belief systems is a quarrel with the Creator.
According to Stabroek News’ editorial of February 6, 2022, the writers of the Atlantic Readers series found Guyana’s diversity problematic which would be an admission of their own limitations. It is more believable that the readers were always intended to promote the PPP Government’s wholesale adoption of the oneness ideology and the writers, as SN stated, opted for “a mixed family with an African father and an Indian mother, although neither of the children has been given an Indian name. However, their demographic selection in this instance one would have thought eminently defensible.”
It is not defensible and the reasons are too many to write in even several letters. These are, however, very apparent to every fair-minded, thinking person.
My intention here is to alert families, communities and schools of minority groups about these Atlantic Readers texts and to say to them that you have the responsibility of ensuring that our children are properly taught and grounded within our homes as to their heritage, culture, religion, and traditions.
This is nothing new to Guyana. My parents, like so many others, did the same for us in order to counter school texts that were based on British imperial superiority, and to fill in the gaps left by West Indian readers which presented Africans as the only Caribbean people; Indians, Amerindians, and other Caribbean minorities being wholly absent. Because of the supplemental and reparative lessons, we became educated despite the discrimination and have remained faithful to our cultural heritage.
To Ms Narissa Deokarran who wrote at length in both SN and Kaieteur News (February 8, 2022) in defence of the readers, she should be reminded that it was her aja and ajee and nana and nanni who stood courageously against attempts to colonise them away from their culture and beliefs. She could start her own journey of discovery into her history and heritage which stands in jeopardy once again of being diminished and disappeared by interrogating her very own name.
Sincerely
Ryhaan Shah
