Dear Editor,
At a recent Bath Settle-ment, political meeting Mr Ramjattan of the AFC pointed out that Indians should not be afraid of African people and even spoke of them living and doing well outside of Guyana, particularly in the Caribbean where there are predominantly black populations.
However, while this is so one has to realize that the collective grievances of the PPP/PNC, Indian/African peoples of Guyana are deeply ingrained as a consequence of experiences which were extreme and are kept alive mainly by politicians and other interest groups over many years dating back to the colonial system of divide and rule.
The mindset that ‘We are right and they are wrong,’ or that one group is superior to the other fuels the belief that each side is in possession of the truth; both regard themselves as victims of the other. They are therefore trapped in an insane spiral of perpetration and retribution, action and reaction.
This competitive ‘Us against them’ mentality is at the core of this long-standing bitterness between the two, and will continue to affect the development and progress of Guyana unless both sides come to the realization that their differences are politically engineered. It is for this reason and this reason alone that they are able to work with each other elsewhere, when they are outside the infective and insane influence of Guyana politics.
Yours faithfully,
Bernard Ramsay
