In physics and dialectics, there is the concept of balance

Feb 07, 2013 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

---

Nigel Hughes, as chairman of the proceedings of a meeting at the Bethel Congregational Church in Beterverwagting hosted by the 1823 Coalition for Parade Ground, made the point that when African Guyanese speak about ethnic discrimination against Africans they receive accusations of being racist.
He went on to say that because of this African leaders tend to shy away from the subject. David Hinds was in the audience and the audience knew very well that Hinds has belaboured that point umpteen times in the past and still at it.
The very 1823 Coalition for Parade Ground held a similar meeting at the Salem Church on Hadfield and Chapel Street in Lodge (South Georgetown). At that event, I spoke about the non-reaction to something I did twice on my Kaieteur News page. I examined advertisements in both the print and electronic media and found out that ninety eight (you bet, 98 per cent) of the faces in those advertisement were either light in complexion, very white and are from people outside of the African ethnic mix.
To date, not a single organization that functions in the sphere of African rights and African culture has taken up the issue. I asked the Coalition at that Salem Congregational Church meeting to put this on their agenda of pursuits. I hope they do. Let us look at another area of African silence in this country. You can cite more than twenty times (you bet, more than twenty times including as recent as his last Sunday column) over a five-year period where Ravi Dev has called for ethnic balance in the police force. But not only Dev, there are other Indian extremists who openly clamour in the newspapers for ethnic balance in the police force.
Where are the responses to Dev for ethnic balance in other spheres of life in Guyana? If my memory is still intact and if my eyesight is still functioning then I believe I see other important realms of life in Guyana that are so indispensable to national survival that there needs to be balance in those crucial segments of national existence.
What is so overwhelmingly sensitive about the security forces that there must be ethnic balance? Where is the balance in commerce, import-export trade, financial houses, land ownership, property ownership, investments in business ventures, agricultural projects, engineering firms, the construction industry, the retail trade in downtown Georgetown etc?
No why must there be ethnic balance in the police force and not in these areas mentioned? Here is a reply from people like Dev. The police force is a public institution and therefore it needs to reflect ethnic balance. On the other hand, things like commerce and investment depend on market forces. The Government has an obligation to restructure public institutions but the State cannot intervene in market forces.
Forgive my language, but such an argument is elephant dung
There is no country in the world where capitalism is more overflowing than the United States. Yet the US Government in 2010 intervened in market forces, lent the private section billions of dollars and saved the country from collapse. The argument of the Indian extremists is that Guyana needs an ethnically balanced police force for the maintenance of stability.
One would think that the same reasoning applies to business, financial transactions, investment structures and land and property ownership. Enter sociology. Isn’t it the sociologist that tells us that if sections of a society are deprived, sensing gloom and doom, they tend to become desperate?
We come now to the African-based organizations. Where are the replies to Dev and others? Does the answer lie in what Nigel Hughes and David Hinds have posited? African leaders in Guyana are scared of engaging in narratives and discourses that revolve around the dilemma of African Guyanese out of fear of being accused of being racist. So whereas Indian parties under the PNC Government were vocal about discrimination against Indian and operated without fear of being labeled Indian racist, this boldness is missing in Africans in today’s Guyana
Finally, what about the leaders of other ethnic groups? Do they believe that there should be ethnic balance in the police force, the army, the public service, commerce, business, land ownership, financial houses, investments, and the award of contracts.
Speaking about contracts; surely in all types of contracts awarded by the Government, there seems to be an amazing ethnic imbalance. But there isn’t even a whisper against this ethnic predominance.  The opposite of imbalance is balance. We need balance in all forms of national life in this land.

---

---