The Ethnic Relations Commission

Dec 21, 2020 Editorial

---

In recent news, the Ethnic Relations Commission announced that it has launched an investigation into a post purportedly made by AFC Executive and APNU+AFC Parliamentarian, Cathy Hughes, causing the politician to lament in two separate releases that she did not, as the post says, call for “civil war” in Guyana and that her reputation was severely damaged.
A cursory glance of the original screenshot to anyone familiar enough with Facebook would see that picture had been manipulated, with the comment purportedly made by Ms. Hughes not only unable to found online but with basic aspects of the forgery apparent, like, for example, the font in the screenshot different from the regular Facebook font as seen in other comments in the same screenshot.
That said, considering her own involvement in creating and perpetuating obvious and dangerously divisive fictions earlier this year, from claims that Russians hackers were here to influence the vote to the lie that the Granger administration won the March 2020 election, Ms. Hughes might want to rest easy that her alleged reputation might not have actually suffered that much.
In the broader picture, however, this most recent incident highlights two very important things. The first is our continuous ethno-political divisions and how they remain vibrantly alive after the greater part of a century. The reason that the fictional Hughes call to arms is so dangerous is that she represents one half of a political divide consisting of two players who have in fact repeatedly brought this nation to the brink of civil strife. The sentiment attributed to the sitting Parliamentarian might not have come from her but it is one that was repeatedly threatened on social media by persons stoked by the false claims made by the Granger administration that it was a victim of a non-existent international conspiracy to unseat it, as opposed to having legitimately and convincingly lost an election. Guyana is a tinderbox of racial unrest and both major politic groupings have continued to play with matches around it whenever it has suited their tribal, partisan purposes.
The second issue highlighted is the utter absence of capacity and basic good sense in the current management of the ERC. The announcement of an investigation into Hughes for a comment that the burden of evidence shows that she did not make arguably has been more damaging to ethnic relations than the comment itself. Publicly calling an investigation into a sitting parliamentarian with no technically competent preliminary investigation gave unnecessary credibility to an act of incendiary fraud.
In a year in which the Ethnic Relations Commission had arguably the greatest need and opportunity to fulfill its constitutional mandate, it has and continues to proceed in gaffes and half-measures, and when it is supposed to be taking bold steps to hold politicians accountable for their divisive actions, it instead has set itself up for accusations of a lack of credibility from those very politicians. For example, in its failure to adequately address the statements made by one of its very own Commissioners Roshan Khan a few months back, it opened itself to criticism from the Opposition. Therefore when the APNU+AFC was asked why it was not taking the concrete step of presenting its otherwise unsupported claims of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the public service since it finally demitted power, it cited the inaction of the Commission against Khan.
Conversely, President Irfaan Ali, while he was technically incorrect that the Commission was absolutely silent, recently lambasted the Commission for its inaction and during the David Granger-led five month attempt to steal the elections, that inertia being the reason he gave for boycotting the ERC’s uneventful two-day ‘national conversation’ on race last week.
As for that ‘conversation’ itself, what this country needed in the wake of our most divisive elections in recent history, and the worst political crisis we’ve had since that of the late nineties (which incidentally spawned the ERC), was a genuine engagement with credible persons honestly and intelligently talking to each other about race, politics, and the complex, dangerous interplay between them. What we were given instead was a complete avoidance of the nexus between race and politics presented ironically not simply by persons the majority of whom had some senior political affiliation or the other, but some of whom were (and arguably are still) directly involved in promoting racist politics. Essentially, the Commission had the brilliant idea of dressing up arsonists in firemen’s clothing and enlisting them to help put out a smouldering fire.
At a time when, on paper at least, the very powerful Commission should be front and centre in tackling our ethno-political divisions, a handful of Guyanese at best would be able to name three Commissioners, and less would be able to name the Chair alone. Like the political fortresses that the ERC is meant to keep in check, the Commission is clearly suffering an acute crisis of leadership. This is unfortunate considering that the Commission already has two things in its favour – a Constitutional mandate that leaves it free from political interference and a significant annual budgetary allocation. Instead of cosmetic and self-defeating theatricality, what the Commission should be doing is investing in a multi-year programme that is based on grassroots community interventions mixed with an increase in technical human resource capacity, particularly in the area of conflict resolution, within the Secretariat itself.
As it is now, however, no one at the Commission seems to recognize that as the increased public revenue that comes with oil further threatens to cement divisions in this society, it is only the ERC that has the power, the mandate and the moral responsibility to lead, competently and with integrity, the reconciliation that will save us from breaking completely apart as a nation. If the Commission does not get its act together, a manufactured quote from a politician is going to be the least of our worries.

---

---