Dear Editor,
I refer to Dennis Wiggins’s letter “Black nationalism did not inspire violence against Indians” (06.11.05). I will not be involved in Mr Wiggins’s arguments or positions or those of his adversaries or supporters. My offering is to point a few correctives to Mr Wiggins’s letter:
(a) Mr Persaud says words to the effect that “Post-colonial Black Nationalism which is reactionary, perpetuates violence against East Indians in the Caribbean, mainly Guyana and Trinidad.” The attacks on Indians and Indian-looking people which took place at the end of the last two or three elections (save the last) was not the work of Black Nationalism. It was the work of politicians and Black Racism. Black Racism must be distinguished from Black Nationalism.
(b) Mr Wiggins facilely claims that “slavery, emancipation and national liberation is what shaped the politics and history of the Caribbean.” Mr W.’s view of history is very blinkered. European peoples came to the Caribbean, suffered great hardships, invested their money over the centuries, peopled the place with Africans, Indians and others, created the economy of the territories, gave the territories their law, languages, political institutions, administration, education and to a large extent their culture. Europe even gave the territories their thought-process and world-view. “Slavery, emancipation and national liberation” were merely noticeable eddies in the flow of Caribbean History.
Mr Wiggins writes: “Black nationalists and their resultant revolts initiated the national liberation struggle and eventually led to the end of colonial rule in most of the Caribbean including Guyana and Trinidad.” Mr Wiggins is being deceived into taking the line propagated by Burnham and Jagan and other Caribbean politicians that they were the strugglers for and achievers of national independence. The truth is different and is as follows:
After World War II, European Imperial countries including Britain had become weaker and were unable to hold their empires. For Britain, holding their Caribbean colonies was a financial burden they could ill-afford. By 1950, the British had decided to leave their Caribbean colonies and all that was necessary was to find successor politicians to take over who would continue their policies as far as possible. They were able to identify such politicians in the 1960’s. Guyana however presented some difficulties since there was communism in the territory. This delayed the British withdrawal for a few years until they were able to check-mate the communists.
Putting aside politicians who could become Ministers and Heads-of-State, etc. the vast majority of ordinary Guyanese folk, and indeed Caribbean people look back with nostalgia at the colonial times. These West Indian colonies were palmed off to the locals and the British got away leaving us in the mess with the many politicians who pose as “freedom fighters” claiming their rewards.
To talk of local politicians or any parties or groups struggling for Independence is pure romanticism and fantasy. The cold truth is that the British were anxious to hand over their burdensome West Indian colonies to the locals and succeeded in doing so in the 1960’s.
(d) Wiggins writes: “Some Indian people see themselves excluded from the Caribbean social identity which they perceived as being formed in a Black national consciousness and thus their fierce resistance to Caribbean Creolization”.
Actually, Creole Culture in the Caribbean is a European cultural adjustment to local conditions. Since the Caribbean always had a large Black population from the 17th century, Creole Culture took some African facets, but it still remains a European-style culture despite the fact that it still has some anachronistic characteristics when compared to modern Europe culture. Creole Culture, for example, regards whiteness as superior to blackness and believes that European concepts of beauty are the desired and prevailing ones. Creole Culture assumes the Christian religion in its European form to be superior to African religions and have often banned or socially ostracized African religious survivals. Deep down in the heart of Creole Culture is the economic stereotyping of the black man as a wage-earner shorn of any entrepreneurial capabilities while the white man is regarded as a natural employer and entrepreneur. Creole Culture, reflecting its European ancestry, felt that no other cultures, whether African or Indian, should be allowed any real space to be functional and to grow.
Nowadays, everywhere in the Western World and even gradually in the Caribbean, multi-culturalism or pluralism has been the watchword. Thus in Canada there is multi-culturism and in the USA, the salad bowl has replaced the melting-pot. The difficulty of one culture, like creole culture, wishing to dominate leads to alienation and disunity. Pluralism or the salad bowl is what societies in the Developed World are using and are building more unified and culturally richer societies. Creole culture, because of its false idea of mistaking uniformity for unity, causes the disunity in places like Guyana where attempts are made to shut out Indian cultural ways and to a lesser extent, African cultural survivals. Guyana and the Caribbean will have to depart from the 19th century and adopt the “salad bowl” if they wish to have truly unified societies.
(e) Mr Wiggins speaks of “the reality of the disproportinality of poverty among Afro-Guyanese”. This is an incorrect assumption. Blacks and Indians are equally poor with Indians being slightly poorer. Mr Wiggins could authenticate this from various published reports on the subject. [Mr Wiggins is anecdotally looking at some high-profile wealthy Indian bourgeois and mistaking them for the whole Indian population]
Regular letter-writers like Mr Wiggins and others should be very careful of their facts, since if facts are not accurate, they could mislead and indeed negate and discredit their letters.
Yours faithfully,
Leah Lawrence
