Propaganda

Oct 03, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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In yesterday’s piece, I outlined what is IESD. No need to go back on a definition. Today, this essay argues that there has been no evidence since 1992 when the Indian-dominated PPP took control of the state to prove that in Guyana, there exists a sociological or political process called the Indian Ethnic Security Dilemma (IESD).

Unfortunately, we had to bifurcate the analysis because of space. I hope readers are familiar with what is IESD. If not, please see yesterday’s KN. It would require a very long research paper to prove that IESD is more propaganda than social science theorizing.

The evidence against this hypothesis is very large. Unfortunate in compressing the material, huge insights will be lost.

First, the historical myths. There is no support from the Commissions that looked into the disturbances in the sixties for the claim that the security forces either turned a blind eye to violence against Indians or participated in the mayhem.

There is also the theory that because it was a racial conflagration, African security personnel would have shown some sympathy for their own people.

This may be true. But it is a far cry forty-five years after to say that racial partiality in the security forces is a major social cancer that creates a deep security complex in Indians.

Still with the historical myths; there is the question of the striking civil servants who instinctively rejected an Indian Government under Premier Jagan.

The story of the sixties is slowing, undergoing elegant revisionist thinking. One can argue that the strikes were more politically motivated than racially directed.

Four factors have to be assessed. You had the commercial classes as the protagonists.

That could have swayed public servants. Then, religion could have come in since the trade unions, business community and opposition parties were Christians. State employees could have seen the battle in religious terms. Anti-communism could not be discounted.

Finally, what about the insensitivity and arrogance of the government of the day that refused to back down? In evaluating the conflicts of the sixties, there is no clear cut proof that only racial motives were at work. We come now to the post 1992 environment.

Secondly, there was post-election violence in 1992, 1997 and 2001. Indians were physically attacked. But not only Indian business places were looted. Did the security forces allow brutalities to take place against Indians?

I can only speak for myself since I was out on the streets on all three occasions. My answer is no. I did not see that. I saw police wade into crowds, beat people and disperse them.

A fire was lit outside my mother-in-law’s business place and quickly the fire engines came with all the personnel being Africans.

Indian rights activists like the people who formed the group, Guyana Indian Foundation Trust (GIFT) confused sociological behavior in depressed, urban areas with anti-Indian feelings among politicians.

Once there is unrest in Georgetown, poor, unemployed African youths are going to attack city commerce.
This has nothing to do with an Indian Ethnic Security Dilemma.

Thirdly, there is the composition of the security forces over the past forty-five years since the riots of the sixties. In the fifties and sixties, the police force took a large percentage of their staff from the ordinary village folks and from the lower classes.

Today, the army and police officers are highly educated people who mix with their counterparts abroad, are part of the Georgetown elites and have pervasive friendships in the Indian community.

They are not inclined to watch African youths torch buildings and beat up Indian people and keep their hands to their side. This has not happened since the PPP has been in power from 1992.

Fourthly, the fact that 1,100 soldiers and police did not vote in the 1997 elections tells the story of their fading political loyalties. Fifthly, an aura of realism has crept into the security forces and public servants. They accept the decline of the PNC, see a weak PNC that may not get into power again, and they have accepted an Indian Government.

Fifthly, how do you account for the existence of the IESD and the GHRA report that most of the victims of police killings have been African youths?

Sixthly, if there is an IESD, then how do you account for the Kean Gibson theory that an Indian Brahmin Government steeped in Hindu caste culture is bent on using the African security forces to marginalize African Guyanese?

So who is right? Is it Kean Gibson who sees African existence slowly dying or the advocates of IESD that argue that Indians are afraid of a public sector and security sector that do not like them and their Government? Both Gibson’s theory and the IESD are propaganda.

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