Author’s second book targets racism in Guyana

Jun 02, 2013 News

“The peoples of Guyana sit on top of a known, restless, threatening volcano. It is called RACE. There is no way to sugarcoat, ignore, or dismiss this prowling, mindless monster in the midst… This nation has endured its share of the occasional racial eruption, the rush of consuming lava, the sweep of threatening peril; but these have been explosions in miniature, and only a precursor of greater dangers currently harnessed, and still ahead. Still, the burns and scars and memories are painful to the flesh, and irremovably embedded.”
Gabriel H. K. Lall, exposes the dangerous manifestations of racism in all its parts in his second publication titled, Sitting on a Racial Volcano (Guyana Uncensored).

Gabriel H. K. Lall hoists a copy of Sitting on a Racial Volcano (Guyana Uncensored)

His first publication, Guyana: A National Cesspool of Greed, Duplicity & Corruption (A Remigrant’s Story) had been unashamedly truthful about the deep-rooted issue of corruption in Guyana from prominent institutions. This one is no different.
The publication, which was launched at a simple gathering at Marian Academy on Friday last, introduces the subject of race and its repercussions on modern day Guyana.
Speaker of the National Assembly, Raphael Trotman, at the launching stated that “our colonial predecessors effectively manipulated and used the issue of race and competition and rivalry to divide the Government. However, while we are not guilty of starting this rivalry, we are certainly to be condemned for continuing it”.
Lall asks in his book, “Who are we? Where are we? Where are we going? As a society, as a nation, as a people?”
According to the author, racism has long since caused people to retreat, to shelter and even to hide rather than to bring the issue to full public view.
He described the issue as a volcano, with a future that “threatens” and “endangers”.
The unashamedly scrutinising Lall brings to the fore the relationship existing between the two major races in Guyana; the East Indians and the Africans, identified in the book as “Indian” and “Black”, underlining the differences in perceptions between the two groups and mixing the preferences in political factions, primarily on the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) and the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R).
The publication made reference to tragic events in Linden and Agricola as “manifestations of the bubbling, heaving volcano.” Guns were referred to as “the final solution in Guyana”, the determining factor of peace, the only option to equilibrium.
Evidently, change is emphasized as “the only way left”, the needed element to eradicate the deeply entrenched root of separation between the people of our nation. More importantly, change must come from the “top”, change that has thus far been involuntary.
Essentially, unless the issue of race has been dissolved, progress will be obscured.
Lall said that change has to come from those who are willing to tread in new and different paths and to inculcate hope. He urged all to put their heads together and stand up for each other, to take back our society and to look for the common good.
The publication is now available for purchase at the Austin’s Book Store.
(Tiffanne Ramphal)