Dear Editor,
The recent exchanges between, on the one hand, Speaker of the House Ralph Ramkarran, and Dr David Hinds plus Tacuma Ogunseye on the other hand, draw us into a reflection on the uses of ‘history’ and the way facts fit in with or fail to modify a grander meta-narrative of racism and suffering that in its several versions define how we see our past.
The discussion among the gentlemen turns on the question of the PPP’s role in the perpetuation and nourishing of the racial/racist situation.
We conclude that, in this case, “fact” is mostly irrelevant. Most people understand and re-transmit not only the truth but also much that is only the mythical and the meta-narrative. From the Afro-Guyanese perspective, some Indians are animated by a triumphalist racist mythos feeding on a false sense of victimhood..
In the Indian story many blacks are basically unjust and overbearing and possessed as well of a consistently false sense of their own victimhood.
Ideas of who suffered more will, as suggested by Dr Randy Persaud in a recent letter, emerge or suggest themselves from discussion of slavery and indentureship and become attached to readings of our recent history under the two major parties in the post-independence period. It is therefore unlikely that agreement as to the existence and interpretation of ‘objective fact’ will be easy.
Hence what the psychologist remarks about the human tendency to filter away inconvenient information and to retain only that which accords with pre-existing dispositions, the cultural theorist offers as operating at a collective level with an equally great force.
And it is precisely this distinction between the historical narrative with its multitude of details that fix blame then establish cause and effect, and the overarching meta-narrative that comes in different versions according to the race and ethnicity of the narrator, that is at the root of the conflicting versions of PPP and Guyanese history. The historians’ narrative seeks to decide with exactitude who did and does what to whom, who are the heroes and who the victims of the co-habitation between black and Indian. The historian offers us for example – who was first killed in the sixties, who first extended the hand of peace, who first invited whom to share the pie… But we conclude that this narrative is forcibly subordinated to a grander conceptual scheme, a mythical meta-narrative which serves, in the end, to help each party decide who suffered more at the hands of whom. And to whom reparations or revenge is due. The meta-narrative is hardly concerned with fact, but principally with image and idea.
If we accept the above then, in this sense Ralph Ramkarran is right when he
says the exact sequence of events in the following case is of little weight.
It doesn’t matter if Cheddi had refused to include the PNC or WPA in the proposed national reconciliation government at point A or at point B of the historical narrative. The Indian meta-narrative insists on portraying Dr Jagan’s hand eternally extended in a gesture of reconciliation and invitation.
Whatever happened, Mr Burnham is eternally portrayed in some minds as plotting with his people to punish some by banning flour or peas. Not true, but it has entered the racial/racist narrative and there it will stay. The black marginalisation, facts and fears, despite the statistics being fondled and paraded by Prem Misir, have also embedded themselves in a meta-narrative that has now taken a life of its own and, when and if the PPP is put to sleep, black narration of their version of the PPP years will use these facts and fears to colour their historical narrative and to lend meaning and motive to the story of the East Indian government. The process has begun in the work of Kean Gibson.
What Mr Ramkarran will doubtless agree with is that the PPP is seen and sees itself as an Indian party. We may observe that it has consistently and exclusively championed Indian issues and has campaigned against anti-Indian discrimination. It is stubbornly silent or dismissive of complaints against the Indian racists in its midst. Its final years as an opposition party witnessed its own distortions of history as it contributed to the meta-narrative, and ceaselessly, to the fiction that East Indians here were living in a condition comparable to apartheid.
It has given birth to an Indian Arrival Committee, a good work in itself, but one that essentially answers all questions about its racial identity and preoccupations.
So, in the end it does not matter what Hinds or Tacuma say, Dr Jagan has long been carved in stone, his hand held out in a gesture of peace and reconciliation, his smile benevolent. Mr Burnham (and it doesn’t matter what he did) has his own role in that version of the story.
Finally it matters little what the historians say about who did what to whom if we continue to hold on to what Eusi Kwayana sought to dispel – the myth of a single guilty race.
We make victims of each other. And we know only our own version of the story.
Yours faithfully,
Abu Bakr
The historians need to put it in books and published them, instead of just writing ephemeral newspapers articles and letters.
Newspaper articles also have a place in the recordig of history. Not all books are true and authentic. For years I lived in an interracial village and tried my best to jugde people for who they are. Ralph Ramkarran knows the PPP and Dr. Jagan are no saints and I like the fact that people are speaking out. Read Freddie Kissoon and you’ll learn plenty.
When flour was banned my family could not make roti if we didn’t get flour from Suriname. Neighbour Doris(God rest her soul)could not make bakes when she didn’t get the contraband flour too. I remember sometimes she used to mix rice flour and wheat flour and make bakes. When peas were banned neighbour Doris and my family couldn’t make dhall.
I remember Uncle Babu one day telling a PPP leader who stopped to talk that both Africans and Indians were suffering from the bans and they should say that and not make it a racial thing. That man looked at Uncle Babu as though he was crazy and walked out the yard.
Put it in a book, Mohamed, and publish it. It will last longer after you are gone -far longer than newspapers (and blogs).
Seems like you read too much of Freddie Kissoon, he is trying to rewrite Guyanese history, look out for his book which he promised if he cant finish his daughter will, most Indians are trying to recover from the stigma that Burnham did deliberate things to punish them like banning stuff that is their main staple like peas potatoes and flour and stuff to perform religious ceremonies, although other races did suffer because of the ban it was not severe because of their culture in eating different types of food, Indians also believe that national service was introduced to break the culture of the indians and Guyana can become the ALL AWE AH ONE FAMILY.
Coolieman…i understand the phrase All Ahwe ah wan family to mean together we rise or together we fall. Look at us today 22 years after Burnham.
I dont believe no body suffered more than me during the ban, so stop this thing that wheat flour and peas has something ethnic or cultural about it. Every non East Indian person was using Flour and peas for more than a 100 years before the ban. Matter of a fact slaves were using these same comodities during slavery and correct me if i am wrong. Tell me at what point does Wheat Flour and Peas become associated Culturally with Non East Indian Guyanese? Because i am waiting eagerly to know when i can make the same claim as you, being a Non East Indian.
I think Mohamed made the most sense or speak the turth on this issue since 1992.
Coolieman you really give alot of credit to the author of this article matter of a fact you embodied everything he wrote.
Please stop the hate and just tell us explicitly how the ban affected YOU. Maybe we can then compare you experiences with that of a Non East Indian to SEE WHO SUFFERED MORE, which is your cry.
Not 22 years, is 24 years now since Burnham
dead, he died in August of 1985, some folks from
Babu John will always thing and talk like this
My friend Pepi, Coolieman can’t help it.
Pepie I will give you one instance how the ban affected me personally, I was planning a religious function(jhandi)and as usual I bought Ghee, flour, potatoes, split peas and other things necessary for the work and store it in my fowl coop,two days before the work at around 12 midnight I heard a knock on my door saying open up police, when I opened the door there was 2 police they said they want to search for contraband when they found the stuff they took me to the lock up, the next morning they threatened my old mom that if I dont own the stuff they will lock her too, I was convicted and fined, as kids we were used to a certain way of life and Burnham took all that with the stroke of a pen.
coolieman. I am from the Corentyne also. The contraband trade, not farming, was responsible for the rags to riches in Crabwood Creek and other parts of the Corentyne. Years ago, afro guyanese stayed away from Tain. Now go to the watering holes there, you will see afro and indo guyanese having a good time there in harmony. The wind of change is blowing in Guyana. The racial foolishness, that you seem entrenched in, is coming to an end, except in the PPP run government. It is sad that living in the USA, has not changed your narrow outlook of life. A new day has dawned, and the PPP will be voted out of office.
Coolieman you are full of it, I grew up in GY and know for a fact burnham ban never prevented people from worshipping god.
Tell me where in any hindu religious book god is asking you for more than saying his name or thinking his name.
Quote me the passage that says you have to pray wid ghee and mahanbhog etc. Show it to me you donut.
I am not going to justify Burnhames ban, but some of you people try to go over the top as if that was the greatest crime in the world.
You know what i say today, give me back burnhames ban of food items and give us back the security we had back then and the economy we had back then vs. this madness we are seeing day in day out.
Compared to the great achievements of the PPP we have seen the past 17 years Burnham is looking like a genius. DD is damn right.
Brandon SOMEWAROOO your comment does not even deserve a reply, go read water falls paper you friend Freddie say he get sell out, you leda fu KFC been go meet abe presee fu something mus fine out fu wa and tell me back.
Write a book, Mr Coolieman, write a book and publish it. I plan to write one, “How a QC school boy was a flour smuggler.”
coolieman. The Indians also profited most, economically. Just take a look at Crabwood Creek. From rags to riches. I was no fan of Burnham, but he was a man before his time. Stop the trash talk. IN TODAY’S GUYANA. ALL AWE AH ONE FAMILY. GO A GUYANA AND SEE ALL DEM INTERRACIAL DATING. SURVIVAL IS THE NAME OF DE GAME IN GUYANA.
Diamond Dog I am from the Corentyne and I visit Guyana regularly, only a few Indians make it from rags to riches through contraband,95% of Crab Wood Creek people were farmers and lots of them did make it from rags to riches through farming,as for interracial dating people are doing it off their freewill and its not wholesale like you are suggesting but Burnham was trying to force it down their throats that is why national service which was a good thing failed, he did not cater for other peoples culture instead he was using it as a slave camp expecting to create a new breed of Guyanese.
i refused to reply to your arrogant rambleing collie man, just to say that you will drown in your very own rhetoric.
You can live forever. You are right. This needs to be done. Planning to do my part. Started already
” WE make victims of each other ” ,, ” and [some of us] we know only our own version of the story ” ! facts of course is another animal !
suffice to say the last [2] sentences of Abu’s missive is the thrust of of his attempt to proffer thoughts to reconciliation !……………..
still many like this will be offered ,, but it is “education” that will only be the means to the end which is harmony of being
” one people ” under the “Golden Arrow Head” !….
it could be achieved ,, in 7 years ,, or at the very least ,, being so that at our 50ieth there can be objectives to achieve ,, and a total transformation in the next 50 ,, only thru EDUCATION !!!!!!!!!!!!
my simple thoughts on fostering a nation of GUYANESE !
not indo and afro ,, we is neither any of the two any more than we is west indians ! dem live pon islands ,, WE live and is part of a continent !……
History does not lie. What occurred in Guyana in the past has to be measured against those who were a part of it, those who stood idly by,and those who prospered.
we need to also measure what is going on now and who are standing idly by and those who are prospering…….
The PPP is as guilty as the PNC for the state of Guyana.
eh colin you up here now padna? like tings bright down dere or what?
Brandon Samaroo (What has the PPP done for us in 17 years?) all of us can’t leave. I am here on vacation!
This is as insensible an arguement as that of naming a place in Guyana as Revolution Square.Flatly the crime spree place is no square, but surrounded by an area resembling a dilapidated junkyard,and there was no revolution but a backwards one.Into a hell hole.Now to the point.Since there was no closure for national abuses by an illegal minority race, the majority race will continue to rightfully assert it’s stance, by dismissing the myth,that the minority race was not the single guilty race.It was and is.I am not implying about something which I and others did not see or experience. We will say this because we saw it transpire ourselves.While the minority supporters looked on and did nothing.
The first statement of any honest analysis by the historians on the subject of Racism and Ethnicity in Guyana must identify the red herring influence that plagues this artificial controversy.
Although I lived in Guyana for the first nineteen years of my life, somehow I’ve never encountered any form of Racism personally. I heard older folks talking about the subject, but back then, it was never a serious 24/7 life and death discrimination or marginalization controversy. It appeared that anybody who was entitled to, eventually got their fair piece of the pie.
However, slick unscrupulous and immoral politicians have employed the race card as an election tactic to differentiate the platform planks between the two major political parties. The tragedy of this visionless and untimely strategy was that, it unknowingly facilitated the harboring of severe distrust and sometimes dislike between the African and the East Indian.
I don’t know who was the original strategist behind ‘APAN JHAAT’ as a tactic to flat out win votes, but it has resulted in what is now called ‘tit for tat’ Race and Ethnic politics. Unfortunately, this have devoured the uniqueness of issues or the different choices available to the electorate. In other words, it forced voters to choose sides based on Race and Ethnicity even when doing such may have been against their own interest.
Racism as a political strategy during election time has not only robbed the Guyanese people of knowing the relevance of the party issues and platforms. It has eventually spilled over into every aspect of our relationship as a people, making us always suspicious of each other’s motivation on the simplest of issues.
Abu Bakr, let’s hope that the historians who will finally write Guyana’s epitasis are clever enough to decipher the fact from the fiction of this national man made catastrophe.
Well Cochore you are high lighting the problem and it is blatant.
What a waste of valuable print space. This letter makes absolutely no sense to me. The writer cannot seem to make a point. What is meta-narrative referring to? ‘Single guilty race’ is no myth!
If the one man one vote is good for South Africa, it is good for Guyana.