For “Race Conversations”

Jul 28, 2013 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev

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(The following was first offered in 2005)
From the beginning of its work in Guyanese society in 1988, the Jaguar Committee for Democracy –JCD and its successor ROAR located themselves in the Indian community and insisted that they speak as “Indian Guyanese”. This position has earned the ire of most political commentators even though we have, on umpteen occasions, explained the rationales for our stand. We want to revisit the issue, as another “first principle” because we believe that the socio-political conditions that demanded our approach still exist.
Back in 1998, during an exchange of letters in the press, we cited a 1970 quote from Dr. Walter Rodney that gave a remarkably similar rationale to our own for organising in specific ethnic communities. Elder Eusi Kwayana said at the time he was unaware of the quote. We believe it would be very instructive for all of us to hear some more of what Dr. Rodney thought of how best to organise for change in a racially divided Guyana.
Dr. Rodney said, “Let us take the fact that, over the last decade, Indians and Africans, in Guyana, have been at one another’s throats, for a variety of reasons, internal and external, and that there is a tremendous amount of ill-will and suspicion, on both sides; let us take that fact. Now some people deny this and talk about racial harmony, but it is not so. It may be submerged, but it is there; it has to be there: the system ensures that. But what can we do about it? I feel that there are at least two levels at which one must try to organise against the prevailing condition of racial antagonism.
One must organise within the African community, within the Indian community, too, to build different forms of consciousness, different types of social bases, which will ultimately be the form of a new State, and simultaneously, one must begin to find effective revolutionary integrative mechanisms, both organisational and ideological, in terms of people, purely and simply, people, you know, as contributors to the new concept of group consciousness, group power, as for example, like putting six persons… three Africans, three Indians, not just in form of a symbolic show (they have, of course, to be ideologically consistent and so on), but putting them in a meaningful, nationally-powerful position of leadership, and as a unit.
Now, you have at the second level, to begin to indicate what you would like the society to be like, what that unit should be about, because, if you organise separately, this may well be construed by each group as something exclusive and hostile. So, you have, at the same time, while doing that bringing together, which is historically necessary, to produce the integrative mechanisms, and act in the kind of fashion, and use the kind of language which makes it clear to the other group (let’s say the African and the Indian are the main groups) what the national aims are, what the country’s Socialism wants to achieve, in spite of race. We have a number of other people, including the Amerindians, the original inhabitants of the country, who are the most neglected. Our integrative mechanisms must be organised to include that group….As we move towards Socialism, we’ll also be, in the process, contributing to the total eradication of racism, in its most violent forms, a racism which has arisen through the slave trade, slavery, indenture, class and colonial oppression.
What we must try to understand (and this is a point I’m always trying to make very clearly) is that there is no contradiction between saying that, at this particular point in time, a man needs to assert his given identity, so that, at another point in time, he won’t need to assert it. It would be taken for granted, the whole business of identity, because people will respect that fact, in the changed society, where race will have no marks of identification, whatsoever, on which anybody can lean for support, or for whatever. But it is a respect which no group has, at the moment, at the moment, in the present system, in Guyana.
And I think that within our community of Guyana, different ethnic groups need to assert their identity, need to put themselves together, to pull themselves together, and when they have and when they can operate on the basis of mutual respect, which they are not now doing, now, then I think the way will be clear for building a new society, a society of a mixed unit through Socialism. But, first, the various groups must be built up, made conscious of their own potential, their own dignity, their own power, as Guyanese.”
How much has since changed, from 1970, 1988 or 1998?
Of course, the meta-narrative of Marxism (and all one-shoe-fits-all approaches) has since been abandoned by most intellectuals and the question of the hegemonic constructions of identities has come to the fore. On the question of identity, we agreed with Dr. Rodney, who, unlike the vulgar Marxists did not reflexively dismiss race/ethnicity as “false consciousness”. We disagreed with him, however, that Marxism was anymore free of racism than Liberalism. As products of the Enlightenment, both ideologies were complicit with the production of race and racism of the modern era – the racism arising with African slavery.
These racist structures are deeply inscribed in most of the ideas and practices of the world view that surrounds us – and while they affect most non-white peoples negatively – they are most extreme to African peoples. The descendants of African slaves especially, and Africans generally – should be very wary about those who would still blithely treat “race” as just another stratification or segregation. We continue to be amazed by African leaders who, in their rush to be under the “one-love-banner” imposed by the dominant paradigm, refuse to accept that the African condition is qualitatively different from that of other groups in the society and demands different programs.
Even more than any other group, Africans should refuse to accept that anyone who has not experienced what it is to be an African should speak for them. It is from that standpoint that ROAR at this time is honestly saying that it cannot speak for those whose experiences they have not lived. We have announced, however, from the moment we arrived in Guyana, that we are willing to work with anyone who could also state that they also work authentically within other communities. We are still so willing. We hope that there will be some dialogue on this most important issue – the approach to organising in present-day Guyana – as per the proposals put forward by Dr. Rodney and supported by ROAR.

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