Dear Editor,
In the wake of this year’s commemoration of Emancipation Day, there have been several panel discussions and symposia organized by African Guyanese activists discussing “the African-Guyanese condition”. I have emphasised that each of the groups in Guyana has their own narrative of their history and these discussions and presentations illustrated the African Guyanese’s. As with other narratives, they directed fingers of blame to the “other”, signalling they are conflicted in valued areas of national endeavour.
We need to consciously construct a “national narrative” that would give each group in our country their just desserts. Narratives are stories emplotted to make sense of our lives and our need to create them appears to be wired into our brains. An event occurs – say the elections contretemps at Ashmins – and we are driven to explain how or why it did. What happened first…what followed? Who were the persons involved? What did each person do and what were their choices? What were the background circumstances – social or physical – that might have brought the event about? In a word, we want to know about “causation”.
But in the creation of narratives, since very few of us are in a position, or have the inclination, to conduct rigorous enquiries from ground zero, we reflexively also resort to narratives that others might have constructed around similar events. In a word, we fall back on our “remembrances” – whether at the individual or collective level. Narratives, then, are not only constituted; they are constitutive as far as they “explain” our experiences. Much of what we are fighting about can be described as “memory wars”.
In accepting there must be some factual historical truth “out there”, we should appreciate we have to be careful to filter out, as best as we can, the inherent subjectivities of all narratives – especially when they concern history “writ large”. We must begin with an agreement on the objective facts that should constitute “history”. However, while reality may be created by events and processes, our experience of that reality is the “re-membrance” of it – that is, “our-story/narrative”. History and remembrance are not the same. History is the chronicle of that reality as collated by historians but it is our “remembrance” of the events that structure our responses.
Why is it, we should ask, do the PNC/APNU/AFC coalition supporters justify Mr Mingo’s interference with the tabulation of the Region 4 SOP’s because of the claimed subsequent recount “anomalies” uncovered? Mingo’s stipulated power of divination has to do with the narrative used to “explain” the experience. African Guyanese have a historical fear of being ‘swamped and subordinated” by Indian-Guyanese when the PPP wins elections via their votes. And justify manipulations such as Burnham’s and Mingo’s to “rectify” that advantage. To assert that Indian- Guyanese are now one minority in a nation of minorities, in which either of the two major blocks has an equal chance of securing office through attracting votes outside of their base constituency, does not cut much ice.
Today, we and all those who would examine our history, have the advantage of hindsight and access to a wider array of accounts than those who lived through the events. In attacking the possible illusions of retrospective determinism – that “there is no alternative” – we should connect the past with the present in a broader, more unified narrative that is healing rather than destructive. We cannot change the past but we can certainly shape the future.
John Paul Lederach, the “International peacebuilder”, defines constructive social change as “the pursuit of moving relationships from those defined by fear, mutual recrimination, and violence toward those characterized by love, mutual respect, and proactive engagement.” If not love, let us at least have mutual respect to listen to the narrative of the “other” and address their fears. We must recognize the complexity of relationships and eschew the us vs. them mentality as we “generate, mobilize and build our moral imagination” by creating links between memory and vision. Don’t we all have a vision of a future peaceful and prosperous Guyanese community?
By shifting the meaning of the past through a differential emphasis on particular events, we can transform how we act in the present.
That past may not literally exist – any more than the future does – but it lives on in its consequences, which are a vital part of it. Our past was certainly not all hate or division.
Sincerely
Ravi Dev