Dealing with Reality

Dec 18, 2011 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev

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For the last twenty years I have been analysing our proclivity to vote along ethnic or racial lines. Under the general theme of “who speaks for whom in Guyana”, I posed the question whether it was not counterproductive for our political parties to ignore this reality and insist they were “multiracial”?
We just had another election and the pattern held true once again – excepting that some Indian Guyanese expressed their dissatisfaction with the PPP and voted AFC, similar to the action of some African voters in 2006 against the PNC.
Yet the three major parties still insist that they are “multiracial” parties – not as an ideal but as a reality.
There was a time when parties denied the reality of “race” and insisted that “class” was the category of identification.
This line has been pretty much abandoned, but parties still refuse to deal with the implications of “racial” voting. The issue, I suggested, is partially rooted in semantic confusion: not making a distinction between “non-racial” and “multiracial” parties.
A multi-racial/ethnic party can only be one that firstly accepts the validity of racial/ethnic interests, and secondly, has within it individuals who are willing to overtly represent those interests through ideas – and, as may be warranted, by presence.
Representation by presence – especially for those who have been excluded or have experienced unique situations, is now widely accepted.
Such parties can be a coalition of self-identified racial/ethnic parties as with UNMO (United Malays National Organisation) in Malaysia (Malays, Chinese and Indians). By this definition, no party in Guyana is “multi-ethnic/racial”.
A “non-racial” party rejects the articulation of specific “ethnic” interests – and historically, all our major parties, including the PPP and PNC and now the AFC, have taken this line.
This orientation harks back to the roots of what constitutes “representation” in our “representative democracy”. The favoured approach, from both the old Liberal and Marxist ideologies was the “representation of ideas”.
That is, once the interests of the group are articulated then anyone could “speak” for the group. So we have, as in the last elections, all the parties constructing “national” platforms in personnel and content, and claiming to be speaking for “all”. Yet the voting was racially divided.
If the parties could accept (as did ROAR) that they are ethnic parties based on their respective support bases, then they would be compelled to talk about a “national” government. Otherwise “national” would have to mean “unanimous” and not ‘majority”. Right now APNU is beating around the bush that 40% of the population is excluded from the Executive.
But it really means that African Guyanese are excluded, yet it will never say so. Why not? After all, the “multiracial” party was supposed to only be a way-station to the “multiracial” government, wasn’t it?
If we create the latter institution, the argument about which party is “multiracial” or not becomes moot, but this happy circumstance.
So APNU’s push for a national government will be seen as inclusion for Africans and Indians will begin to ask, “Who represents us?”
And the polity becomes more polarised. It could be that the parties refuse to accept they are ethnic parties because they fear the approach might reify or solidify ethnic voting.
Yet we have not seen any change in orientation in the last fifty years with the “multi-racial” party charade. But we have suggested another possible approach that might be more politically correct.
This is the approach, as in the Democratic Party in the US, to have specific “caucuses” for its various “ethnic interests” – their African and Hispanic voters.
There is no shame in this or apologies to be made. It seems to have worked for them. The party is one, but the caucuses can meet separately to hone a common approach on matters that affect them.
This is then presented to the combined party. It is only in Guyana we reject “representation by presence” – for ethnicity/race, that is. We accept 30% representation of women by presence!
Let’s take African Guyanese to illustrate my point on the need for ethnic presence. As I’ve said on so many occasions, in our specific situation, no one but the descendants of slaves can speak for the descendants of slaves. Slavery was not your ordinary, garden-variety oppression and the scars lie deep. Specific programs might have to be crafted to deal with historic disabilities.
The other groups such as Indian and Amerindian Guyanese of course, by definition, also have their own perspectives to be represented.
To our credit we have recognised the unique disabilities inflicted on the indigenous Amerindian peoples in our country by crafting specific programs for their communities and it would be an enlightening exposition as to explain why it is taboo to speak of other ethnic specificities. “Representation by presence” by its operation, has its own liberating potential.
The non-racial ideal has never been realised. We have to work with the material we have: politics has to be pragmatic, in the philosophical sense of the word.

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