Identifying security services alone to correct racial balance, is unacceptable.

Mar 04, 2025 Letters

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Dear Editor,

We note the strongly worded reply by Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, Guyana’s Permanent representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva to IDPADA-G Chairman, Vincent Alexander, who in a fiery exchange has exposed deep-seated tensions over racial equity in Guyana. Ramsammy has branded Alexander’s recent human rights presentation as ‘baldfaced, reprehensible, ugly lies.”

I recommend Alexander’s presentation as necessary reading to all Guyanese irrespective of age, colour or creed. For if we fail to confront this introduction of forms akin to apartheid, like wildfire, it will consume us all.
Today, we cannot afford to ignore our country with products of imperialism and colonial attitudes, supported by the well-known divide to rule policy. We must not ignore that group from Freedom House that have picked up this baton of imperial exploitation and are daily and gleefully running with it.

As one who grew up in South Georgetown, an area which had the greatest mixture of freed African slaves and indentured labourers from India, China and Madeira, my father’s drugstore was a meeting place for people from Albouystown, La Penitence, Charlestown, and I never experienced any form of racism. Occasionally, my father was called upon to settle disputes between Hindus and Muslims. Beyond that we learnt to live in love together.

Why should the General Secretary of the PPP now propose ethnic balance in the security forces only? When you have a government, not for the first time, identifying security services alone, to correct racial balance, it is unacceptable. When this matter first arose in the late 50s and early 60s, some of us gave evidence contending if the PPP wanted, as Jagdeo is now saying, to disturb the proclivities and preferences of past generations, that the PPP must also with a computer in hand ensure ethnic balance in so far, as the allocation of lands, scholarships, loans, licence to import goods and that their cabinet itself should not merely reflect racial balance in terms of numbers but racial balance in terms of portfolios, where the real power resides.

People everywhere, in every continent, respond to their proclivities and preferences in life, providing of course, these do not interfere with the rights and happiness of other groups.

Guyana’s history is straightforward and unless we understand how that history has placed us in society, we would have a troubled and turbulent society. If the PPP General Secretary is asking for balance in the security forces, he is ignoring, why it is that traditionally more Afro Guyanese opted to join the military, Constabulary and Police establishments.

As I will point out later, the fly in the ointment has always been with the attitude and belief of Massa. After sacrifices and the shedding of their blood at the several slave uprisings, with the urgings in the British Parliament of the likes of Fowell Buxton, William Wilberforce and John Newton, the Africans were set free. However, this freedom was tainted by the fact that unlike others who were transported across the Atlantic, the Africans had their cultural and ancestral roots completely severed, hence today, the majority of Afro-Guyanese are burdened with Anglo-Saxon names and preferences.

Records showed that after leaving the slave castles in West Africa, the ship owners did not allow the captured Africans to take with them their drums, and other paraphernalia, things which united people to their ancestors. Later, using discarded steel drums, this led to the unique creation of the only new musical instrument in the 20th century – the steel pan. A credit to the creative genius of people who were dehumanised and demonized for generations. The other people did not suffer this disadvantage as they were able to bring with them all the vestiges of their culture and maintain the connection with their origins.

The Manumitted Africans had no choice but to adopt the Anglo-Saxon theology and beliefs, which included proficiency in English, and the graces of the erstwhile masters. This of course, led to them being best qualified for the civil service, the police, the army and the health services. Speak to two generations of Indians earlier, they will tell you, it is the African midwife who delivered their children with love and affection safely. In all this, Indians wisely stuck to agriculture, rice, etc. The records will show that they worked hard on the plantations.

After World War I, the British sent Commissions to persuade the Indo-Guyanese segment of the population to take up education. In all this, the Indians who worked hard on the estates fought against the exploitation, for example of cut and load, instead of cut and drop. They were able to maintain their cultural roots, work hard and practice deferred gratification.

The PPP General Secretary has apologised to this nation for this latest proclamation. I recall as a youngster, and unto this day, you couldn’t get Indo Guyanese with few exceptions, just a few to take up boxing, basketball and football. At Queens College, with literally one or two exceptions, we couldn’t get any Indo Guyanese buddies to join the Cadet Corp and Troupe 27, the Boy Scouts. These days, with the abundance of money available, it is inappropriate and a mark of indecency to ask therefore for racial balance in one sector of life in our country.

But is the heartland up to his old tricks. Recall, the PPP, had advanced arrangements to bring in thousands of Indians from what was then regarded as the Communist state of Kerala in India. When this plan surfaced, we made it clear that this adventure was unacceptable. The PPP was forced to abort this project. Let people pursue a path and vocation where they are comfortable.

You can hide or even bury the truth, but it will come like a hurricane, for the truth will come, bursting forth sooner than later.

Hamilton Green
Elder

(Identifying security services alone to correct racial balance, is unacceptable.)

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• colonial attitudes, imperialism, United Nations, Vincent Alexander, Wildfire

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