Dear Editor,
Is there a true Guyanese heart that did not beat in tune with the tenor of Kit Nascimento’s ‘quo vadis’ letter? ‘One People, One Nation, One Destiny’ (published in several newspapers in Guyana) is not an option for us. It is our national motto; it must be the credo of every Guyanese. Nor is this a response to current profanity. In 1951 (26 October), as a student in London, I was moved to write to the Editor of The Times in the wake of the Report of the Waddingon Commission, as follows:
“Responsible elements in all racial groups in Guianese society are devoting their energies toward crushing the evil influence of racialism wherever it rears its ugly head; and throughout the country men and women of diverse races are working together in all the fields of social and political activity, sublimating, in the process, conflicting racial loyalties to a comprehensive and overriding loyalty to Guiana. It is only the irresponsible and the political opportunist who attempts to retard and reverse this process and to divide the country into rabid racial camps. As the Commission points out, ‘race is a patent difference and a powerful slogan ready to the hand of unscrupulous men who can use it as a stepping stone to political power’. It is the avowed policy of such agencies to divide; surely it is not the office of the Constitution to assist in their design. To propose a system of communal representation is to grant to the cause of racial separatism the argument of constitutional validity and to concede to such elements of social disorganisation a victory which few Guianese would be prepared to accept as inevitable. To refuse to assist the force of an evil is not necessarily to ignore its potential danger; very often it is the surest method of ensuring its defeat. The Commission has faced the problem with courage and many generations of Guianese may well be grateful for the ‘optimism’ of their decision.”
The youthful instinct for a ‘one Guiana’, which drove that message 72 years ago, has only grown stronger and more compelling as Guyanese strive today to realise our national motto of ‘Oneness’.
Sincerely,
Sir Shridath Ramphal
