Feeding a cultural dilemma in Indian communities

Apr 24, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor
The KN on Sunday 21 April had full page colour ad for a Carib Beer Chutney Mania event on Sunday 4 May at Better Hope Ground.
The ad lets us know that we have to buy six Carib to get one free ticket and that the tickets are being promoted by Carib dealers in the communities which are populated by Indian people.
While the alcohol industry and their lobbyists will argue over how much damage a free ticket to the Chutney Mania will cost to the individual and the communities where the tickets are being sold, there is a broader cultural assault going on here.
As the nation debates raging anti-Indian sentiments, and as organisations like the Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha and the Indian Arrival Committee have worked to promote non-alcohol events especially around key events like Indian Arrival Day, there is a backlash to this context in how Ansa McAl and its retailers are pushing the consumption of alcohol in communities populated by Indian people and some of whom are dealing with a crisis caused by alcohol consumption.
Ansa McAl probably did not know that this year is the 175 th Anniversary of the first Arrival of the Indian immigrants and that the 5 May is Indian Arrival Day.
Instead of joining with the Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha and the Indian Arrival Committee and the other organisations who are trying to deal with the effects of alcohol in the communities, Ansa McAl in this event is taking a side in the culture war which has contributed to many of the social and health problems in the communities.
But the capitalists among us will say that Ansa McAl and their dealers are engaging in legitimate business that the fact that more Indian (and other) people have been killed or maimed in incidents involving alcohol than by ethnic conflict in Guyana, is irrelevant.
We have truly arrived!
Vidyaratha Kissoon

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