Ethnic Impact Statement

Jul 17, 2011 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev

---

(For the umpteenth time we offer this proposal to reduce ethnic bickering leading to conflict)
In all societies, citizens critically evaluate the policies and activities of the incumbent government: governments after all, are elected to run the State on behalf of its citizens.
This scrutiny would be even more intense by those who may have voted against the government. Particularly in poor countries where there is never enough to go around for everyone, the scrutiny would centre over whether the government was unduly favouring its own supporters.
It has become common, therefore for governments in the developed democratic countries – where public opinion matters – to announce ahead of time what impact their policies will have on specific constituencies – be they, as in the US, labour, business, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and so on.
The more divided and polarized the society is, the more critical will be the evaluation of the government’s policies, since the premise of the government being the hand-maiden of “one side” is even more credible.
In Guyana, while the PPP Government attempts to discuss the impact of its policies on constituencies, its analyses are grounded in a Marxist perspective.
It insists on demonstrating that its policies help the “working class”. This doesn’t cut any ice with the ground constituencies, however, which generally categorize themselves ethnically, and evaluate every policy from that perspective.
The PPP has had to defend every single initiative – be it appointments and dismissals to and from the Public Service, downsizing of the bauxite sector, house-lot allocation, contract awards – against claims by the African Guyanese community, for instance, of discrimination against them and favouring Indians in the sugar industry, rice industry, gun-permits etc.
In each instance, the PPP’s explanation has been too little, too late for African Guyanese. During 2003, in the case of the Bauxite industry, for instance, with the Bauxite workers literally camped out in front of the Prime Minister’s residence (he has the Bauxite Industry under his portfolio), and a contingent picketing the Parliament (illegally) the PPP was forced to finally declare in Parliament that rather than discriminating against African Bauxite workers, they had been subsidizing the industry and the workers for years. They had not previously trumpeted this fact, presumably because it may have upset their Indian constituents. Too little, too late.
The PNC since 1992 has, in turn, consistently accused the PPP of practicing racial/ethnic discrimination against primarily its African supporters – even as it feels necessary to insist that it is not an “African party”. It is caught in the same semantic contradiction as the PPP. The charges of “marginalisation” from the African community have been a primary fuel in the ethnic conflagrations since 1998.
The agreement signed by President Jagdeo and Mr. Hoyte in 2001 and the Communiqué of 2003 between the President and Mr. Robert Corbin, were attempts to answer such charges. But they simply led to additional charges and counter-charges over implementation or non-implementation. The PPP and PNC will have to overcome their ideological reservations and deal with a spade as a spade: the division of the cook-up must not only be ethnically fair, it must be seen as ethnically fair.
For two decades, ROAR argued for the introduction of an “Ethnic Impact Statement” by the Government before it implements any of its policies and programs. It did so consistently during their five years in Parliament. We have now all accepted (hopefully) the need for “Environmental Impact Statements” before we embark on programs that will affect our physical environment.
The Government, for instance, had to submit one before the Skeldon expansion of GuySuCo could begin. The policy is an acknowledgement of the fragility of our environment and the importance we place on its health and survival, for our own health and survival.
I would hope that we would acknowledge that our social environment is as important as our physical environment – and certainly more fragile. After all, it has been vividly demonstrated over the past decade that the destruction of our social environment is the direct destruction of “us”. One cannot get closer to home than that: with the environment at least the effect is a bit indirect and delayed.
While we know that the cause (and solution) of our ethnic problem goes beyond governmental actions, the fact of the matter is that we have to begin there. It is a simple matter of justice. If “Ethnic Impact Statements” could be crafted and issued before the announcement and implementation of policies and programs, they would precipitate discussion and debate, which could be utilized to modify the policies or programs before they become political mobilisational tools.
The old cliché still holds: justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. An “Ethnic Impact Statement” on Governmental activities would go a long way to introducing the latter happy condition.

---

---