Dear Editor,
My great, great grandmother came to Guyana as an indentured worker. Her name was Japalia. She was from Uttar Pradesh. Like all those brave souls who journeyed from the place of their birth she was searching for a better life. She was courageous and I am forever grateful for the choice that she made. I came to be born here, a beautiful, bountiful land, a place I am proud to call home.
I am a Guyanese. I do not distinguish myself from any other Guyanese even if others choose to do so by virtue of my race. I have no need to look back to a place that belonged to my ancestors my concern lies with the place to which I am bound, the place I call home.
In the run up to general elections and in recent days former President Jagdeo has made vile and ugly statements, assertions about what will happen to Indo-Guyanese if the APNU+AFC wins the elections. He, more than anyone else has played the race card in what seems to be a desperate bid to fuel hatred and division among Guyanese. It is sad that no one in the PPP has chosen to distance themselves from him.
In his speech at the Indian Arrival Committee’s concert at the National Stadium on May 1st he is reported to have said that those who are the purveyors of this past, now “come in new guises,” warning of long dark days if freedom is taken away. “If we allow ourselves to have this freedom snatched away from us then it would be long dark days for our country again and our ancestors would never be proud of us”.
This disgraceful play on fear and the emotional blackmail is what the purveyors of hate rely on to keep Indo-Guyanese loyal to them.
I am asking my fellow citizens to reject the continued assault on our intelligence.
Our own Martin Carter (No Separate Salvation’, March 5 1955) put it best when he wrote-
‘’Everybody living in this country ought to know that people of African, Indian, Portuguese and Chinese descent dwell here only because in the past sugar lords found it necessary to bring their ancestors to this part of the world to work in the cane fields…
There is no separate salvation for Indians in Guiana, no separate salvation for Africans. There is only salvation for a united Guianese people… Let those who advocate racialism in any form among the people confute this.’
Better must come.
Yours faithfully,
Nadia Sagar
