Latest update March 29th, 2024 12:59 AM
Apr 02, 2015 Editorial
One Guyanese who proudly identifies himself as such is being pilloried. As fate would have it, even the national leaders despite taking an oath of allegiance to the country, Guyana, and wrapping themselves in the cloak of the Guyanese constitution, see themselves as anything other than Guyanese first.
A few years back, while a reporter was travelling through Trinidad and Tobago he heard a conversation between a United States based Guyanese who happened to be coming home. This foreign-based Guyanese was pumped up about his blackness. He wanted to see people aligned by their ethnicity although in his mind, all non-whites were black in keeping with the North American designation.
He goes to the Trinidadian and tries to tell him that he too was black. The Trinidadian was of East Indian ancestry but he slapped the man down with a terse phrase, “I am Trinidadian.” Needless to say the Guyanese was upset and he mumbled something about people being part of a lost cause.
There are times when people from our corner of the world are caught up trying to determine the ethnicity of certain people and misplacing them. For example, when England brought a man named Basil D’Oliveira as a member of the team, the then Head of State, Forbes Burnham decided to impose the ban on the team for trying to play D’Oliveira. At the time Guyana had a ban on anyone from South Africa playing in this country.
The English for their part contended that D’Oliveira was not a white South African but that did not matter. In our book, from appearances D’Oliveira was white and he looked the part. At best he was South African.
People prefer to be identified by nationality than by ethnicity for a variety of reasons. One of them is that nationality is a greater rallying force than ethnicity. People proudly display their nationality. Wars have been fought by nations. Here ethnicity does not matter.
When the Pakistan Under-19 cricket team came to Guyana a few years back—Shaheed Afridi was then Under-19 and he came here too—there was a black opener. Guyanese were amazed and to a man the reporters raced to interview this black cricketer on the Pakistani team. One of the local reporters asked the young man about being black and being on the team. The young cricketer replied that he was not black, that he was Pakistani.
When Moses Nagamootoo said that he was Guyanese and not Indian he was doing what everyone on the modern world would do, display one’s identity. We are our nationality first and anything else after. Therefore, when a former President of this country seeks to make much out of Nagamootoo’s ‘I am Guyanese’ statement, what he is in fact doing is seeking to heighten the race issue in Guyana. In fact, he has brought race into the elections campaign.
Every Guyanese knows that race has been playing a significant role in elections in Guyana from the introduction of Universal Adult suffrage. In those days it was us against the whites. This trend continued in 1955 and remains a fact to this day.
Fortunately, as the older members of the society move on there comes younger people who care precious little about their ethnicity. A few censuses ago, given the inter-breeding in the country, more and more people were identifying themselves as ‘mixed’. So confusing is this issue that obviously mixed people sometimes choose to adopt the ethnicity of one parent ahead of the other and demonstrate how confusing this whole idea of ethnicity is.
By appealing to race, ‘Only an Indian can attract Indian votes’, former President Bharrat Jagdeo is telling all who would listen that the race card has come out for the elections. Two weeks ago, he said that his party would not allow anything that would signal a descent to using the race card. Some things are easier said than done.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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