Local election campaigning is presumably underway. The exchanges will not be civil, to say the least. Indeed they will probably be nastily ad hominem, verging on the vicious. The danger for the country is that viciousness is so often reflected in a racial prism. When that happens, civil society in Guyana deteriorates further.
Every single one of us must make a deliberate effort to resist strenuously and repeatedly any semblance of racial stereotyping or appeal to race for race’s sake.
Years ago a jazz quartet, the Gary Burton Jazz Quartet from America, visited Georgetown. The quality of music was the outstanding attribute common to the group. It was to be noted, also, however, that all their skins were white. Thereupon the music critic of the daily newspaper filed a review praising the excellent performances of the Quartet but ending nevertheless with the extraordinary judgement that jazz could only be truly represented by the black man.
For this he was taken to task. It was pointed out that although jazz was originally a product of black Americans in the Deep South the form has been so developed and enlarged over the last century that it was no longer the property of any one section of humanity. In his reply the music critic said that the cold hard facts of cultural history showed that it was the black man who created jazz and the black man who had produced its major innovations. His basic argument now seemed to be that it was ‘origin’ that mattered above all: “jazz originated from the experience of the black man under the yoke of slavery,” he wrote; and “jazz is the black man’s brainchild.”
That, of course, is not the point at all. Invention does not endow anyone or any race with an eternal monopoly. Can only Greeks write great poetry because Homer was the first great poet? If cross-eyed men invented dance can only cross-eyed men do justice to that art for evermore? The argument is hardly worth a moment’s rational appraisal, it is so obvious.
What is fundamentally important, however, is to refute the original claim, and keep on refuting it, that one race “can only truly represent” anything. Such a judgement is absolutely pernicious when applied to any form of man’s endeavour. The need to repudiate it is never done. How often have we heard over the years the view expressed, for instance, that Indians make the best businessmen, or that only Europeans can practise properly the art of democratic government, or – do you recall? – that Japanese have a unique knack in manufacturing electronic equipment. I read once that Jews obviously have a special aptitude for playing chess. In such assessments great dangers lie, however lightly written or innocently intended.
Such racial judgements, casually accepted, set you on a slippery slope which can ultimately lead to obscenities as vile as apartheid. For, if you once accept that a special place should be reserved for one section of humanity in a particular field of activity, then the way opens up at other times for other claims to be made purely on racial grounds. No one should try to put a racial stamp on any form of man’s infinite creativity. Poetry, sculpture, song, and dance are not coloured indigo – or black or white or brown. Nor for that matter, are the skills of industry or the arts of healing or, indeed, the right techniques for governing men.
The intellectual thread runs unbroken between the modest statement that only black men can represent jazz and the horrifying claim that only Aryans can rule. The critic who says that the art of jazz can only really be represented by the black man may not seem to be saying anything very earth-shaking or harmful. But once accept it and eventually you give intellectual validity to those who not all that long ago claimed that the art of governing can only really be represented by the white man. And sooner than you think, the ground is prepared for a Hitler and the appalling creed that only one race counts.
This may seem to be making a great meal of such a small mouthful. But history shows again and again that condoning the first hardly perceptible signs of immorality or intellectual dishonesty can lead step by step to unimaginable evil. Minute concessions of principle in the beginning can grow and grow until a force is released that sweeps away all morality – like the speck of grit dislodged that turns into an avalanche that kills.
The top of a slippery slope can seem quite a secure and even comfortable place to be until the slide begins. Then it gets faster and faster down to the bottom of the precipice. Dwell on the words of Pastor Martin Niemoeller in a famous sermon after the Second World War when he blamed himself for not opposing the Nazis when they first appeared on the scene in Germany. In that sermon Pastor Niemoeller spoke a great truth:
“First they came for the Jews. I was silent. I was not a Jew: Then they came for the Communists. I was silent. I was not a Communist. Then they came for the writers. I was silent. I was not a writer. Then they came for the Trade Unionists. I was silent. I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for me. There was no one left to speak for me.”
At the first sign, the slightest indication, of any appeal to race for the sake of race let each one of us speak for all of us. Reject the appeal.
