Cultural misapprehensions

Mar 27, 2009 Editorial

Now that the dust is beginning to settle on the Report of the United Nations Independent Expert on Minorities, as we promised, we will consider some substantive matters raised therein.
We repeat, right up front, the core concern of our editorial “Minorities All”, on the unsuitability of the Expert’s conceptual framework that was derived from a much different reality than ours in Guyana.
It is based on the “Old World” – including Africa – context where historically, when the notion of “community” changed from one of common “blood” – jus sanguinis – to one of occupation of a common territory – jus soli – many “minority-by-blood” nationalities were trapped in territories where the dominant groups defined what was “normal”. Oppression was the fate of such “minorities” and much of the U.N. work has been to seek justice for them. The Expert’s extraction of “four broad areas of concern relating to minorities globally” from the Declaration on Minorities (DoM) and applying them to Guyana is redolent of that orientation.
Even a cursory examination of them would demonstrate this bias: (a) the protection of a minority’s survival, through combating violence against them and preventing genocide; (b) the protection and promotion of the cultural identity of minority groups and the right of national, ethnic, religious or linguistic groups to enjoy their collective identity and to reject forced assimilation; (c) the guarantee of the rights to non-discrimination and equality, including ending structural or systemic discrimination and the promotion of affirmative action when required; and (d) the guarantee of the right to effective participation of members of minorities in public life, especially with regard to decisions that affect them.
The first three concerns stem from the DoM’s Article: “States shall protect the existence and the national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories and shall encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity.”
The Commentary of the Working Group on Minorities (CWGM) elaborates: “The relationship between the State and its minorities has in the past taken five different forms: elimination, assimilation, toleration, protection and promotion. Under present international law, elimination is clearly illegal. The Declaration is based on the consideration that forced assimilation is unacceptable.
“While a degree of integration is required in every national society in order to make it possible for the State to respect and ensure human rights to every person within its territory without discrimination, the protection of minorities is intended to ensure that integration does not become unwanted assimilation or undermine the group identity of persons living on the territory of the State.”
“How can these strictures be applicable to Guyana?
If these atavistic principles are applied here they might lead us down such paths as “self-determination of peoples” that has precipitated such bloodletting in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Our history passed all of us through the same – albeit hegemonising – cultural mill and while there is some retention of our ancestral cultures to varying degrees, we have become integrated into a much larger degree a common “Guyanese outlook”. We satisfy the CWGM’s stricture on the desired principle of identity: “Integration differs from assimilation in that while it develops and maintains a common domain where equal treatment and a common rule of law prevail, it also allows for pluralism.” The last area which was used by the Expert – political participation – was subtly broadened away from the more restrictive usage in the DoM that relates to the “old world” usage of the term “minority”.
Article 2.3 states: “Persons belonging to minorities have the right to participate effectively in decisions on the national and, where appropriate, regional level concerning the minority to which they belong or the regions in which they live, in a manner not incompatible with national legislation.”
That is, the political participation of minorities, had to be effectively ensured participation when issues overtly and specifically affected them as minorities.
We are not sure that we want this Balkanisation of politics in our country: there is a world of difference between removing “shame” about our heritage and seeking to rebuild walls among our various ethnic groups.

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Cultural misapprehensions

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