Black Guyanese intellectuals and artists support privileges for Africans

Nov 13, 2015 Letters

Dear Editor,
The Afro nationalist Abu Bakr queried “What is the definition of the Indian that Indian intellectuals wish to protect and preserve”? Why shouldn’t Indians get respect for addressing issues pertaining to Indians? What exactly is wrong with people speaking on behalf of or in defense of their identity?
Should not Portuguese or Chinese or Amerindians be proud of their identity and speak out against abuses they suffer during PNC misrule? Should Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King not speak out against the rights violations of Black Americans and demand racial equity to that of Whites?
Eusi Kwayana, Lincoln Lewis, Barrington Braithwaite, Vincent Alexander, David Hinds, Tacuma Ogunseye, Craig Sylvester, Eric Philips, and other Black nationalists “unfurl their ideas of Black identity” with impunity. If it is good for Afro-centric advocates, why is it wrong for advocates to do same on behalf of Indians?
Since time immemorial, the entire world has engaged in “identity politics”. When Indians speak about their identity and their persecution, it is automatically wrong. Isn’t this double standard?
Bakr asserted that “Black intellectuals, painters, calypsonians, and artists in general engage in self-critiques and have participated in one of history’s remarkable examples of self-examination” and he concluded that Indians don’t do same. He is right that Indian artistes and intellects don’t engage in the same manner of self-critique as the African – that is the central point Dr. Ramharack is making in addition to arguing that many Indian intellects (unlike Africans) don’t advocate for their communities out of fear of being branded. But it is an exaggeration to say Black artists and intellects engage in incontrovertible self-introspection.
They often refer to the problems of their community with limited self-criticisms preferring to lay blame on outsiders (perhaps justifiably) for their problems as can be inferred from the writings of so many Black nationalists and nothing is wrong with such an ethnic position. Contrary to what Bakr feels, Black intellects and artistes pay greater attention to Black rights such as historical land rights, slave reparations, excusing the evils of Burnhamism and rigging elections, justifying the banning of foods (as Bakr himself has mockingly done when he so often trivialized the ‘dhal ban’) critical to the diet of Indians, alleged abuses of the Jagdeo/Ramotar administrations, ignoring anti-Indian sentiments, preserving and supporting privileges for Africans (such as free electricity for Linden and none for elsewhere), defending racial domination (as in discriminating against Indians, Chinese and Amerindians), excusing degenerative anti-social behavior, etc. Indo-Guyanese intellects and others need to emulate their African counterparts and speak out on the atrocities against their groups. Indisputably, Prof. Ramharack stated that few Indian intellects address issues impacting on Indian Guyanese.
Few speak out on critical issues facing the collective, and only a handful of activists participate in a struggle against (anti-Indian or anti-Amerindian or anti-Chinese) racism.
One constraint for not speaking up is a fear of professional retribution and also of being a labeled a racist or supremacist or some other negative connotation. Those labels are reserved for Indians when they speak up regarding issues of Indian ‘victimhood’.
The same labels apparently don’t apply to Afro-centric advocates who write about Africans or paint or sing on the African experience. Indians are expected to watch what they do or say and don’t respond to attacks from Africans. Africans don’t engage in similar self-restraint. In contrast to Indo-Guyanese, African intellects do not exercise restraint in speaking about problems they face. Africans speak out boldly on issues. Bakr and other Afro intellects would like us to assume that when Africans speak on issues impacting on their group, they do not necessarily negate or criticize Indians unless otherwise so specified. Why shouldn’t the same apply to intellects of other ethnicities (Amerindians, Portuguese, Indians, Chinese)? Speaking on ethnic problems strengthens inter-ethnic relations.
Vishnu Bisram

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Black Guyanese intellectuals and artists support privileges for Africans

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