Bottom of the social ladder

Aug 03, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
Guyanese of a certain vintage will remember comments of this ilk being attributed to a former Guyanese President. But do you know that it was also a newspaper headline? Please permit me to share some perspectives from it. Let’s examine what was written about the objects of this description.
This community was described as having left the plantations and with no jobs, turned to crime. They are ‘bottom of the heap, holding less than two percent of the country’s wealth’
Sounds familiar? Let’s continue. A gang culture flourished and, according to police, violence has been going on. Their forefathers did backbreaking work for their British colonial masters, such as building roads and railways. “In this particular area you not only have economic backwardness but a high level of drug addiction as well,” said an activist.
They have been blamed for committing more serious crimes than other ethnic groups in the country.
Many of them feel that their interests have been neglected, blaming the government’s race-based policies. This has triggered violent protests.
“The message of this month’s violence seems to be very clear – there are groups that have been alienated by the racial policies of the government,” said a social commentator.
They are the most visible of the urban poor, sweeping the country’s streets and collecting its garbage.
But this country is not Guyana. And the headline wasn’t taken from a Guyanese newspaper. Neither does the reference concern people of African descent. Instead it comes from Malaysia’s ‘Shanghai Star’ newspaper (29 March 2001). And it is about East Indians.
The point of this letter, however, is not to excoriate another race but to demonstrate how legitimate issues of concern about social exclusion and economic marginalisation can be ignored in the rush to stereotype people in the most dangerous of ways.
There are certain people who write regularly and even have newspaper columns; people who never allow truth to get in the way of their prejudiced viewpoints. They will attempt to sound reasonable, plausible, and fair-minded while skilfully closing the minds of their target audience and hindering their ability to think for themselves.
An extreme example of this was the pre-war Nazi propaganda that would later lead to citizens turning on their Jewish neighbours. History also shows how these tactics stoked the flames of communal hatred that led to the partitioning of India resulting in the creation of the state of Pakistan.
Whereas Guyana does not quite fall into these categories we cannot deny the fact that race baiting is an integral part of our politics. The consciousness of East Indians is constantly being barraged with the concept of a ‘guilty’ or ‘evil’ race. Propagandists ignore the fact that for nearly two hundred and fifty years before the first indentured ‘servants’ arrived from India, enslaved Africans were used, abused and discarded; clearing plantations, building roads, wharfs, canals etc. All for nothing.
It is my contention that if the issues as they relate to Malaysia’s East Indians are legitimate, then they most also hold for African Guyanese. To deny this
reality is to ascribe an inferior status to African Guyanese.
One of the most damaging legacies of colonialism is the mistrust and enmity fostered between races by ‘colonial rulers’ to serve their own ends. It was called ‘Divide and Rule’. Those who spread race-hate are effectively no different, and no less wicked, than the plantation owners.
It is intellectually dishonest and morally repugnant for today’s political activists and commentators to deploy tactics out of the Goebbels playbook to justify their own racist agenda.
Every Guyanese must believe that they belong in the public sphere and not surrender it entirely to narrow minded people to spread their filth. As you walk through the streets of this country ask yourself if this really is an embodiment of ‘One people, one nation, one destiny’. Or are you really of the view that as long as your race wins nothing else matters?
Surely, if you really believe that, you should live in a country populated only with your ethnic group?
Or… take a trip to Malaysia.
Colin Bascom

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