In a recent column I made a passing reference to a comment from Stabroek News writer Alan Fenty who had posed the question in his column whether “one could be Guyanese – spiritually and culturally – without being Indian, African, European or Chinese?” I answered Alan at the time saying the answer is “no, because we are made up of all these strands from other places, plus the Amerindian one, so to be truly Guyanese you have to see all those strands as part of you.” However, I felt at the time that his comment called for more elaboration, hence my effort today.
I would widen the comment above by saying that if we are truly Guyanese, and to be “one people” in fact and not in rhetoric, we should be abandoning these ethnic divisions we so rigidly practise and embracing instead the astounding variety of strong powerful expressions that make up the Guyana mosaic. We should see our diversity as values to be embraced with all the ingredients coming under one umbrella, the one called Guyana, instead of positions dividing us by origins.
