Dear Editor,
Abu Bakr accuses me of “bemoaning” the “absence of Indo-Guyanese intellectuals” (October 30) because I raised the issue, and offered suppositions as to why there exists an absence of voices that can capture the Guyanese Indian imagination. He situates me with other “Indian activists”, though, admittedly, his description was not cut from the same cloth as being the “ethnic chauvinist/triumphalist” of Freddie Kissoon.
Firstly, I must say it was never apparent to me that Bakr was writing from an “Islamic standpoint”. Somehow I missed the grounding of his polemics from the Quran and Hadith etc. Domiciled in France for decades, the separation of distance must have caused Bakr to overlook some other activists, such as Malcolm Harripaul, a former GDF officer and economist Tarron Khemraj, now a columnist for Stabroek News, both of whom served under ROAR’s banner. If Bakr is looking for a national agenda, he would certainly find one in ROAR’s Blueprint, now public record.
Bakr contends that we are caught up in a fallacious argument when we embark upon a comparative analysis of the role of Black and Indian intellectuals in our society – Black intellectuals were more engaged in “self-critique”, he says. This, however, is not borne out by historical evidence. African “self-critique” of their plight has been situational, specific and was reflective of reactions to subjective, as well as objective conditions, often accompanied by a plan of action to remedy the situation. Such has been the case with the Black intellectual movements, within Guyana or the greater Caribbean, whether it be associated with Negritude, Garveyism, Pan-Africanism, Rastafarianism or the Black Power Movement.
Black political entrepreneurs like Dr. Walter Rodney was a product of this shared intellectual paradigm, one clearly reflected in Rodney’s theoretical understanding and his political praxis, evidenced by his “groundings” in Jamaica or his opposition to Burnham’s authoritarianism. Rodney, a Marxist revolutionary, quite appropriately defined himself as “a Guyanese, a black man, and an African” and saw no contradiction in his acceptance of these terms.
By contrast, for Cheddi Jagan, ethnicity was an unwarranted anomaly, a temporary epiphenomenon, which was to be consumed in the class struggle. His political career, despite his dogmatic attempt at uplifting the working class, is replete with examples of painting Indians, even “moderates” and their organizations (JB Singh, BGEIA) as “racists” that stood in the way of his utopian dream. The point being, while a substantial body of experience exists for Africans to draw from, there is no hang up about addressing causes central to their existence, regardless of what “others” might think, the Indian has to check himself at the door, often because he weighs his actions against the reaction of his Black counterpart.
We are told that Indians “externalize” the causes and consequences of their problems even though they have been “remarkably resilient and creative in those endeavours”.
This sounds like a justification for their predicament and their resilience and creativity requires that they know their place in society. The cultural pluralism that shaped the Guyanese Indian experience becomes solidified when events like national elections exposes the fragile fabric of our “being Guyanese” or the Nettlefordian creolized culture, reminding us ever so often of the predicament of our plural society as our shared values and organic solidarity threatens to destroy the notion of “one nation of people with a shared destiny.”
Indians may be guilty of forgetting that enslaved Africans have moved “100 million tons of dutty” to humanize the Guyanese physical, political and cultural landscape to uplift us all from a plantation wasteland. But have not African Guyanese also forgotten that it was only an economic enterprise of the magnitude of the sugar industry that could have convinced the colonial power to invest in the later hydraulics to keep our coastland viable and that it was the willingness of Indians to work for wages lower than that of the departed ex-slaves that made the enterprise viable?
We all vehemently deny the labels of being anti-Indian or anti-Black as we mold ourselves into political correctness and avoid the label of being stuck in the past. Yet, as we move closer to celebrating our 50th anniversary of freedom from the White Man, both Indians and Africans still credit each other for initiating the racial and ethnic conflict which has become politicized since the 1950s. The goal, frankly, has been to keep each other from exercising control over the political state.
If confession represents the sacred truth, Bakr must know that the PPP has played little or no role in constructing the intellectual foundation that has contributed to the shaping of the Indian imagination (one would think that loyalty dictates this much).
The PPP continues to subsidize the problems facing Indians and the party’s core leadership is devoid of an intellectual tradition outside of a vulgar Marxism. We may have to dig deeper into the bowels of history and re-examine Clement Seecharan’s exposure of the Indian imagination embedded in the writings of Joseph Ruhomon or an obscure rebellious letter writer advocating on behalf of indentured Indians, a Bengali who signed his name as “Bechu”, to locate that intellectual tradition.
In fairness, what the Indian intellectuals should advocate for is an equal space in the national dialogue, one which does not evoke charges of racism or suspicions of a racial agenda by the other. This is not Bakr’s call, nor is the task his to define.
Yours faithfully,
Baytoram Ramharack
