Dear Editor,
Your last Saturday’s editorial `A new politics for a new Guyana’ raised a few novel contentions that warrant examination—even though the basis of the editorial was contradicted by the next day’s editorial, which bemoaned the persistence and seeming permanence of the old bad political order. Leaving that aside, Saturday’s editorial spoke of imminent social change (a term encasing political and economic change) prompted by the arrival of our oil industry and manifested in the ongoing rapid growth of local business activity and business/government cliqueism. Additionally, the editorial boldly asserted that ‘Rising incomes will mean new priorities for a growing middle class. Debates in a newly affluent Guyana will no longer be about class struggle or perhaps even about race.” What! A post-racial Guyana?
In recent times, the country has experienced several gradual (and unresearched) social changes, such as the migration of worshippers away from traditional churches to the modern-day start-ups, and the rising number of independent and swing voters. But what do we mean by “social change”? Definition matters, as identifying such change allows us to timely and appropriately respond, recognizing also that not all social change is good.
Not all changes in society amount to a social change. Social change occurs only if the existing structures and institutions (such as how we govern ourselves and how we worship), relationships (such as how we relate across ethnic and gender lines), values (for instance, how we treat the environment and our rules) or our self-identities (how we see ourselves as individuals and as group members) have changed into something different (for better or for worse). If the changes (whether slow or rapid) do not amount to an out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new shift, then what we have is not social change but merely movement within the existing status quo. As such, your example that business/govt ties are increasing is not social change but simply more of the same. Nothing old is rupturing and nothing new is forming. The economic and political order remains stable and intact.
That said, to find where the oil industry can most likely trigger social change, we have to look elsewhere. Where? In the expenditure of oil revenues by the government especially on eradicating poverty and radically lifting living standards for all. A government that self-initiates (or is forced by public pressure to initiate) the spending of oil revenues on a Joe Bidenesque scale can unleash several social changes, predicted and unpredicted. It can, for instance, arouse middle-class impulses in the form of civic participation (as evidenced, say, in the rise of volunteerism and community group formation) or changes in family size and dynamics. The oil discoveries in Norway, as a case to note, led to the emergence of new political parties (pro-social-welfare as their only agenda) that were able to win seats in the Norwegian parliament by tapping into and catalyzing shifting national values and priorities on what it means to live well in Norway.
In Guyana, we are in, what sociologists call, a state of social inertia—a situation where the demand for social change is powerful (to our political system, our livelihoods, our moral standards, our institutions, etc) but where that change is being blocked or remains uncatalyzed.
Lastly, Editor, I must comment on your claim that rising incomes could lead to a post-racial society in which persons and groups self-identify less by race and more by their economic assets and status.
The evidence suggests otherwise. Higher living standards (as manifested by a large and growing middle class) do not abate the formation and expression of racial/ethnic identities. In fact, wealth may intensify the desire among ethnic/ racial groups for more self-expression, self-representation, and self-determination. In disagreeing with your claim, my exhibits include social psychology theories, such as Maslow’s, and the fact that the strong separatist/ethnic fever of the Catalans in Spain and the Quebecois in Canada, both prosperous nationalities, still hotly burn.
Yours faithfully,
Sherwood Lowe
