Ethnic Politics

Jan 15, 2012 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev

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I must commend a Mr Frederick Collins for taking time, in the wake of our usual post-New Year recovery haze, to comment on my last two-part article, “Background to the Present Imbroglio.” The article was intended, as I indicated, as the prologue to a response to those such as Mr Khemraj Ramjattan, who bemoaned the ethnic-oriented voting exhibited at the last elections (and every elections since 1957) as “racist”.
My point was that ethnic voting cannot be explained away by such reductionist assertions. As I’ve written elsewhere, “Guyana is not unique with its brand of politics – ethnopolitics. In fact, it is the most prevalent form of politics in the modern world. With the phenomenal growth and power of the modern state, especially in the third world where private institutions have not had the opportunity to counteract it, capture of the state apparatus becomes the ultimate prize.
Not only for the distributive and allocative powers which the victor has at its disposal, but just as importantly, for the symbolic significance in reinforcing the successful groups’ perception of supremacy and worth. Power can thus be an end to itself. “The politicisation of ethnicity translates the personal quest for meaning, belonging and self esteem into a group demand for respect and power.” Ethnopolitics respects no boundaries be they ideological or religious, as is witnessed by the travails of the U.S.S.R. Nothern Ireland, India etc.”
The dismissal of the rational basis of ethnic voting ensures that its deleterious effects become further entrenched. “The problems politicised ethnicity spawns are so pervasive, and so intransigent primarily because very few countries have addressed them on their merits. Guyana, for instance, mimicking the Eurocentric bias for equating nation and state, proclaimed its motto “One People, One Nation, One Destiny”, and blithely assumed it had solved the “national-ethnic” problem.”
But we have to begin from where we are: our ethnically based politics. While phrased differently, Mr Collins suggests that my analysis suffers from the illusion of retrospective determinism: “It gives the false impression that the ethno-political developments of the 1950’s would lead inexorably to the “Current Imbroglio.” However, I explicitly declared at the beginning of the piece that, “Our present political conflict can be traced to several historical contingencies.” “Historical contingencies” are just what they state – contingencies or unforeseen events.
While the structural factors might be very powerful – such as majoritarian democracy rationally encourages mobilization along existing social identities – the actual choices by the actors are their responsibility – and our consequences. For instance in 1950, the PPP was formed with full cognisance of the ethnic orientation of the newly enfranchised voters. The party was a carefully crafted ethnic coalition: Ashton Chase was moved aside for Forbes Burnham because the latter was considered to be more attractive to the African community.
In term of historical contingencies, I’m not sure how Mr. Collins can accuse me of viewing Indian and African Guyanese as “natural antagonists” from some sort of ontological perspective. That these two ethnic groups competed for political power in a system governed by majoritarian rules is purely contingent: in Malayasia, for instance, it was Chinese vs. Malays. It was just a question of numbers to agglomerate that 50% +1. It has nothing to do with us as “peoples”.
Mr. Collins takes objection to Ashton Chase’s claim that “envy” by African and Coloured Guyanese of Indian encroachment into what they considered to be their bailiwick played a part in the evolution of our ethnicised politics. Mr. Collins is not sure that “envy” as a motivator of action is different from “fear”. I would not break a lance over this point: in fact both emotions have been posited as the basis of the ressentiment that Mr Chase may be alluding to. But we cannot dismiss Mr Chase’s point as that of a callow youth as Mr Collins’ does: Mr. Chase made the comment in 1994 when he was almost seventy.
The point Mr. Collins is making by his contrafactual scenario wherin Mr Burnham could have forged a lasting alliance with the Portuguese-dominated UF and continued to rule Guyana without rigging elections, escapes me. Dr Jagan could also have been a little more subtle about his Marxist proclivities in his 1961 visit to Washington. This is what historical contingencies are all about: people made the choices they did and we have to deal with the consequences.
And yes, Mr. Collins; as I have been pointing out during the past few years, the African Ethnic Security Dilemma is no more. Indians are now at best a minority of some 37% against an African-Mixed majority of over 50%. With a little more push, APNU’s bottom-house mobilization that delivered over 40% last month should bring out that 50%. We’ll see who now argues that 50% is not equal to 100%.

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