Dear Editor,
The Guyana Chronicle editorial (July 2) characterizes the racial enmity which has been destroying the cohesion of our diverse nation and it recklessly analyses our ethnic differences in irreconcilable terms.
The factual record of what happened in post-colonial Guyana is exceedingly complex, and I say this as someone who was born in the eighties.
I believe a period of truth and reconciliation is a necessity and would be a small advance in our society, for what dangerously holds is a Guyana where not fact but myth matters, a lack of sensitivity regarding our collective hurt, and an emotional catalogue of events in our history.
I read the editorial with revulsion and regret, for it seeks to exacerbate the ethnic conflict in our society, in addition to categorizing Afro-Guyanese men as a band of criminals who have been socialized to rob, murder and terrorize the Indo-Guyanese community. This inflammatory type of commentary is unacceptable in our country, more so in a national newspaper.
It is the responsibility of our government to not only promote better race relations in the country, but also to recognize when destructive ethnic sentiments are being disseminated and to address these. The deafening silence of our governing leaders on the editorial has left me to assume that the issue of race relations is not an important one.
The statements attributed to Minister Juan Edghill in a Demerara Waves report on the issue are unfortunate. There are some in our society who consider themselves to be on a mission of historical redemption and of those who mistook their own world for the known world.
I end with two questions still lingering in my head. Where are President Donald Ramotar’s condemnation of the editorial, and likewise, the condemnations of our opposition leaders aside from the WPA leadership? How are we going to begin the convergence towards lasting peace if our leadership fails to address racial antagonism of the kind printed in the Chronicle?
Yours faithfully,
Iana Seales
