Guard against elements who seek to divide us along ethnic lines

Apr 18, 2014 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Social facts are facts that exist in the minds and consciousness of people, regardless of how others may try to ignore them. These need not be facts that could be tested empirically but to the extent that people believe that they exist to that extent they are ‘factual’.
A good example of a social fact is the belief in the supernatural. There are so many people who would laugh at you if you deny the existence of evil spirits. Almost everyone could recount some experience in life which is so bizarre that it often defy rational or scientific explanation.
The same can be said for religious beliefs. No one can prove scientifically the existence of a Heavenly Father, or of some divine being. Yet millions of people believe in the existence of a supreme being and billions of dollars are spent to construct places of worship and to pay the salaries of those engaged in spiritual and religious work.
This is why it is important to separate religion from the state. Our Constitution allows for full separation between the state and religion. The state in Guyana is secular which means that there is no state sponsored religion. People are free to believe or not to believe in religion and no one is discriminated on the grounds of religion or ethnicity.
This puts our country on par with the more advanced democracies of the world where there is political and cultural pluralism. Our religious festivals have become widely embraced by peoples of all religious and ideological persuasions. We all take or children and grandchildren to fly kites at the sea wall and other open spaces even though the religious significance of the festival may not be known or embraced by everyone. The same is true of other religious festivals such as  Christmas, Phagwah, Diwali, Eid ul Fitr and Youman Nabi which are observed by Christians, Hindus and Muslims respectively.
We are a tolerant society. The same cannot be said of many other countries where there are great hostility against people who do not share the same religious beliefs or who are perceived to be culturally different. We all remember what took place in Germany during the period when Adolf Hitler ruled Germany. It remains until this day the greatest man made tragedy that ever took place in the annals of recorded history in terms of the magnitude of deaths that took place in the name of preserving the so-called ‘master race.’
Millions of Jews and other Slavic populations were wiped out by the Hitler killing machines not to mention the tens of thousands more who were tortured and killed in gas chambers because they did not belong to the ‘master race’.
The truth is that there is no such thing as a ‘master’ race or a ‘master ‘religion. Anyone who advocates such thinking is either mentally deranged or outright xenophobic. Such people are dangerous and ought to be placed behind bars for their entire life.
History is replete of examples where innocent people were made to suffer at the hands of evil men who under the guise of religion or race have committed some of the most heinous against their fellow men. The Rwanda massacre which took the lives of close to a million people is still fresh in the minds of people worldwide. The same is true of the mass genocide that took place in Bosnia under the name of ‘ethnic cleansing.’ And more recently there is the ongoing conflict in Nigeria and the Central African Republic where religious and tribal differences turned deadly. In the case of Nigeria a Muslim extremist Group that styled itself Boko Haram has launched an attack on all western norms and values including the teaching of the English Language and western education as a whole.
And we must not forget the bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York allegedly by Muslim extremists which claimed the lives of over two thousand persons which included a few Guyanese.
This is why we have to be on guard against elements in our society who seek to divide us along ethnic lines. The PPP/C administration has established the Ethnic Relations Commission to address issues of ethnic insecurity in our society but the work of that Commission is being stymied by the parliamentary opposition which refused to vote money for its proper functioning.
The PPPC administration must be commended for putting in place measures both at the legislative and administrative levels to address the issue of ethnic insecurity and racial hostility. Under the Racial Hostility Act anyone found guilt of inciting racial hostility are liable to severe fines and imprisonment if convicted by the courts.
There is a saying that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. There is no shortage of good men and women in Guyana and the world at large. Let us all take a stand against religious and ethnic intolerance.
Hydar Ally

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