Dear Editor,
I wish to thank Ms Narissa Deokarran (Letters, February 13, 2022) for suggesting my participation within a group of Indian Guyanese to produce state-funded children’s texts that would recognise and relate to the respective ethnic groups in Guyana. Such texts might be important to groups who feel their young people need more in-depth lessons on their history and heritage than are being taught through the mainstream education system. How-ever, I do not feel our diversity is so problematic or complex that a team of writers, artists, educators and literacy experts cannot produce textbooks that would be inclusive and respectful of every group within our society.
In a previous letter, I suggested the use of the story-telling device of creating a cast of children characters who would represent every ethnic and religious group. They would play together, learn together, and also learn about each other in the process. The dialogue and lessons taught need not be heavy-handed, but simply be part of everyday conversation, play, and socialising with each other. Children today are engaged with technology that includes computers, smart phones, and video games with avatars, television, and movies including 3-D movies. We read Spiderman and Batman comic books but these characters now fly off the screens as three-dimensional characters into a world where children are engaged with, and love such characters as Dora the Explorer and Harry Potter complete with the magic and wizardry of his world.
There is no reason why a dynamic creative team of writers and artists cannot create strong characters for our children that would place them all on an equal footing as they explore the world around them, and even have adventures where they fly to the moon and learn about the stars and planets. There is surely a pool of talent in Guyana from which we can draw to work on this project. And given our newfound oil wealth, there is no reason why there could not be state funding to create animated stories starring the cartoon characters developed specifically for our nation’s children. Instead, the Minis-try of Education has published a series of textbooks for our youngest children which reach backward to imperialist attitudes and authoritarian doctrines. No government anywhere in the world has the right to pursue any doctrine that promotes the social and biological engineering of its population, or any group of its population, in order to shape them to a form or likeness that the government finds acceptable. That is authoritarianism. A government that cannot accept the various groups that make up the society, and respect them for who they are, has no right to be elected to that office.
The Atlantic Readers present minority groups as existing in ethnic enclaves when the reality is that we all inhabit this country equitably. Being an ethnic minority does not mean being confined to any one space and that such a prejudiced view of our First Nations and of Indian Guyanese are presented in these readers – this alone makes these texts absolutely unacceptable. Such prejudices have no place in 21st century Guyana and definitely not in our children’s textbooks. The ministry’s foisting of these textbooks onto our schoolchildren, without any process of review or public consultation, also smacks of authoritarianism and I would suggest that moving forward with a fresh look at the production and publication of textbooks, every step should be part of a democratic process including the assembling of the team that will undertake this task. I have already suggested names that should be included.
A very first step for the team could be to ask our children what they would like to read and see in their textbooks. Our children are not stupid. Their suggestions might well be surprising and delightful.
Sincerely,
Ryhaan Shah
