XENOPHOBIA

Nov 12, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

 

 

When over a decade ago the Brazilians began in their numbers to pour across our borders to work in our goldfields, there was a big uproar that the Brazilians were coming to steal our national patrimony.
When the Brazilians began to crowd out a small block in the city, it was said that eventually they would overrun the capital and take over the whole of Georgetown.
This is your typical xenophobic reaction: a fear of foreigners. It is not so much a fear of foreign domination- God knows that Guyana has always been dominated by external forces both before and after independence. The fear is of a different kind. It is a fear that the success of these foreigners will expose the failures of Guyanese.
It was the same reaction when the Chinese began to enter into the commercial business sector. Some of our businessmen who were weaned on buying cheap and selling expensive began to fear the competition from the Chinese traders. They saw these traders as a threat to their own survival and especially to the windfall profits they enjoyed by selling the same items that Chinese are now selling at twice the price than these same items can now be had from Chinese stores.
These local businesses began to argue that foreigners should be exempt from the commercial sector. They did not realize that for years Indian nationals had established more than a toehold in the local commercial sector and were doing very well. But the local businesses did not wish to face competition posed by Chinese entrepreneurs for fear that it would expose the overpricing that had existed for years.
The Chinese are also into the construction sector. They built the Skeldon Factory; they constructed the National Convention Center; they are building the Marriott Hotel and they are also engaged in the extension of the airstrip at Timehri.
These works do not threaten the stranglehold that the local construction czars have had in the country over the past twenty years. Except for the Marriott Hotel, these projects were funded by the Chinese Government. Therefore it was to be expected that Chinese firms had to be given the right to undertake the construction works in the same way as when the Americans give us money they dictate that the contracts must go to their nationals and firms.
The local oligarchy understood this. The local construction companies therefore did not feel threatened when the Chinese undertook these projects because they understand that these are the rules under which the funding is provided by foreign governments.
But they get worried when the Chinese decide, as they have now done, to enter into the local construction market. This sends shivers down the spine of the local oligarchy because they feel threatened by the possibility that Chinese firms may be given contracts to undertake public works that were formerly the preserve of local engineering firms. The fear is that there would be dire implications for the oligarchy if Chinese construction firms began to bid for public works contracts. That would set the cat among the pigeons.
The oligarchy is fearful of the competition that these Chinese firms will provide to them. They are fearful that their high-cost works will be exposed by the Chinese. This is the fear that  driving the anti- Chinese backlash in this country at the moment.
It is not a fear about a foreign takeover. It is a fear that those who for too long have enjoyed the syrup that flows from the public purse may be displaced by the more efficient and industrious workers from China.
Chinese firms have already left Guyanese with their mouths agape because of the pace at which they have been building the Marriott Hotel in Kingston.
The latest attack on the Chinese has come after it was announced that Chinese fishing firms may be engaged in deep sea fishing in Guyana. This has spread panic within the ranks of the small grouping that dominates the fishing industry and all manner of fears are being generated.
Similar fears were absent when the Japanese and Americans controlled over fifty per cent of the local fishing industry. But now there is the fear that the Chinese will come and do things better and faster and therefore those likely to be exposed for their inefficiency are wetting their pants.
Strangely no one is  complaining about the heavy Canadian presence in the mining industry, the huge domination of our bauxite industry by the Russians or the importation of nurses and doctors from India. And the reason is obvious: these do not affect the rich and powerful.
But simply ask a Chinese firm to build a parking lot and panic spreads like a bushfire because those who have long failed to become competitive and efficient are feeling naked as the day they were born.

 

 

---

---