The Indo-Caribbean Experience: Now and Then
by Elizabeth Jaikaran – Follow @LizJaikaran
Indian immigrants to Guyana in the 1800’s
To be precise, I am an Indo-Guyanese-American: The mother of all hyphenated identities and an illustration of a historic journey from India to the Caribbean. This heritage is commonly packaged in a number of different terms, all of which are heavily used as referential identifiers: Indo-Guyanese. Indo-Caribbean. Caribbean. West Indian. Indian. It is most aptly described as the Indo-Caribbean experience—an experience that is shared by Indians living throughout the Caribbean diaspora and thus serving as the blueprint for my existence.
This unique cultural disposition is why the Indo-Caribbean are able to culturally identify with public figures ranging from Hasan Minhaj to Nicki Minaj. It is why bursts of Caribbean intonation in Rihanna’s voice blanket me in the comfort of home, while the ballads of A.R. Rahman awaken pained demons within me, crying to connect with a history that was ripped from my hands long before I was born.
My parents hail from Guyana, a small country on the northern coast of South America. Guyana is one of the original colonies of the British West Indies and, although not located in the Caribbean Sea, the CARICOM Seat of Secretariat is located in Georgetown, Guyana, thus rendering the country a crucial member of the Caribbean family. [Read more]
Comments
Your history was not ripped from your hands, unlike that of slaves. Yours – i mean your forebears – voluntarily left there motherland and freely chose not to return.
The sad irony is that most of those who chose to return to India at the time of her independence, died ; the few who remained headed back to Guyana.
Amidst your nostalgia is the refusal to integrate in the caribbean diaspora. Your continued identification with the term ”indo” neglects the acknowledgement of Guyana as your home, and you as Guyanese. Your”indian ethnicity” should by now have been replaced a Guyanese one after 170+ years.
Remember the Bengali famine of the 1940’s that killed more than 5,000,000 – most of whom were from the lower classes- among whom your forebears would have been counted. So, thank God, and Guyana,for that stroke of luck that brought you here. You should be forever grateful.
Have you ever heard of an ”indo – nepali ”, an ”indo – Pakistani” or an ”indo – Bangladeshi”? I think not. And their transformation has been more recent than yours.
Stop patronizing my country and my heritage with your hypocrisy. If you are not unequivocally Guyanese, then be Indian or American. Last time i heard, however, the Indians of India would have none of it.
So, GET REAL!
RIC HINDS take it easy comrade, and LIZ just be a good person.
A 100% GUYANESE…. unbiased and unapologetic. I am tired of this ”shit”. We must choose our identities and should stop prevaricating and equivocating about our identities. Some of us have a conflict betwern our loyalties and our nationalities; but our ethnicities are determined by our country of birth… not that of our foreparents. We cannot be one and/or the other(s). So, stop this ”bull”: leave Guyana to GUYANESE. Identify with what – and where – you feel most comfortable… but stop being hypocritical idiots.
Ric Hinds is making the basic mistake of confusing national identity with ethnic/cultural identity. Let me spell out the identity game. .
Guyanese is your national identity, as in your citizenship. You were born as a Guyanese national and remain so as long as you live there.
Indian or African or Chinese or Amerindian etc is your ethnic identity, ie your physical genotype, the way you look, also called your racial identity.
You also have a cultural identity, which is usually linked to your ethnic identity. In Guyana most of the people who look “Indian” physically also have Indian cultural values to go along with the ethnic appearance, and so do the others, except the Africans. Unfortunately because of history and slavery, Guyanese who are African physically almost never have any African cultural values and have picked up a strange cluster of other people’s cultural values. Africans without any significant African cultural values tend to be very angry at other Guyanese who cling to their cultural values, and want the Indians and other s to dump their cultural values and become like them Guyanese only, not Indo-Guyanese, or Chinese-Guyanese or whatever. Ric Hinds is one such. There is no Guyanese cultural identity, let me emphasize.
Then there is also the religious identity, which in some cases is connected to an ethnic group. Some of the Indo-Guyanese will have a Hindu or Muslim identity connected to their group and other Indo-Guyanese will have a Christian religious identity, or if they are agnostics or atheists no religious identity at all. Many European whits and Portuguese will have Christian identities connected to their ethnic group. Chinese and Africans have no religious identity connected to their group as far as I know. I can’t say for the Amerindians.
So here we have it, a pretty pickle. There are some complications. A person can change their national identity, as in giving up Guyanese citizenship and becoming an American citizen. If one is a resident in the USA or a dual citizen, it should be fine to describe oneself as a Guyanese American for a while. But a person born in America would be pushing it to call himself a Guyanese American.
Your ethnic identity as in your physical appearance is determined by your parents and this cannot be changed no matter where you live. The girl of Indian ancestry retains that identity for the simple reason that she cannot change her physical racial characteristics.
One can change one’s cultural values and adopt other cultural values. One can also change religious identities by simple act of conversion. The Hindu Indian girl can become a Christian Indian girl The African people have lost all of their original cultural and religious identities and adopted same from others.
Now that I have confused the situation even more, let the debate begin!
I actually like the young lady. I just think that she is sadly misinformed. I am yet to find offsrings born in Africa of Indian parents referting to themselves as indo- africans , or indians. They proudly call themselves africans, after the land of their birth. Why this tendency amoung ”indo-Guyanese”? Why this need to froliferate and perpetuate this stupidity throughout the caribbean and neighouring south american countries? They are searching for a non-black identity, i.e., they are afraid to be labelled ”black”.
Nonsense, Ric Hinds. In Africa, non-Blacks do not call themselves Africans and are not perceived as such. Gandhi went out of his way to let the British know that Indians were not Kaffirs. People have a right to define their own identity,
Gandhi sure had a difficult time doing that. All indians, including the homo- racist Gandhi, have always been called kaffirs. You idiots cannot help resorting to racists slants when you are confronted with your stupidity. Gandhi went so far as to acknowledge the genetic superiority of the white race over his…as he literally kissed their asses. Your experience is limited to the narrow space between your ears: no offspring of indians born in Africa – or for that matter any non-caribbean country- would call themselves Indians. Take Pakistan or Bangladesh as examples: find one among those who calls themselves ”indo” . I alluded to the fear of being considered black that indulges this stupidity with ”indo guyanese”: you have just confirmed this. And about the 1940’s Bengali famine which killed almost 1/3 of the Bengali population: read ‘your’ history or, better still, see the movies of filmmaker Satyajit Ray where he claims they brought in upon themselves because they live i squalor and ”breed like rabbits”… his words. I suggest you travel the world and improve upon your ignorance. Also, you may consider taking up residence in the country you love so much….if it will let you. But above all, leave Guyana to non – hyphenated GUYANESE. Your loyalty lies elsewhere. I leave you in the hands of the true Indians: they are the ones who will validate your ethnicity…not you nor me. Finally, i live by the adage, ” as good as any and better than most”, and while you are pondering this, my friend, remember that you are residing in country run by one of us kaffirs.
Maybe my friends will find some guidance in census definitions.
North America is the land of ‘rights’ and ‘freedom’ to think, speak and act. Why should one person impose his/her idea of identity on another, which is a convergence of one’s mind, body and spirit plus inspiration and intuition.
Why does one want to impose one’s ‘entitlement’ on another ?
She is what she says she is, isn’t that good enough? Many readers will accept how she identified herself as a ‘unifying’ tool without going into elaborate explanations.
All colours and identities are beautiful especially unified under the ‘human race’ .
Mr Ric Hinds,
I must address you directly, sir, and tell you straight that I find your comments rude, insulting and offensive to the young lady Elizabeth Jaikaran spelling out her identity, and also to the others on this thread trying to do the same.
You are out of place to tell Elizabeth and others what should be their identity statements and in such a crude and boorish manner. You can say what you like about YOUR identity, but you are way out of line to tell people different from you what they should call themselves. You mistake abuse for discussion, and in my view should have no further place in this civilized discussion among adults.
Allow me to count your comments I found most offensive.
1. You told Elizabeth, “Amidst your nostalgia is the refusal to integrate in the caribbean diaspora.” I imagine you are referring to those Guyanese of Indian ancestry. What does a discussion on identity have to do with “refusal to integrate in the Caribbean diaspora”? Who made it a requirement for Indians to integrate in this Caribbean diaspora of the United States or the Caribbean? What exactly do you mean by integrate? Whom do you define as the Caribbean diaspora. If you are referring to black or African people with Caribbean roots, does that mean you are excluding the 2 million Indo Caribbeans from the Caribbean diaspora? I was always under the impression that Indo Caribbeans were Caribbean people in some sense of that word. Throwing about words in a serious discussion without defining them, and using those words to beat up on other people is just plain wrong, Ric.
2. You told Elizabeth her “continued identification with the term ”indo” neglects the acknowledgement of Guyana as your home, and you as Guyanese.” What rubbish! You are hectoring her for identifying with the word Ïndo” which she claims as part of her identity statement. That is more than insulting. You are harassing her for neglecting to acknowledge Guyana as her home when you should know she was born in the USA and that is her home. You want her to declare herself as Guyanese only when you should know she is an American citizen who is proud of her Indian ancestry and culture!
3. You tell Elizabeth her Indian ethnicity should have been replaced by a Guyanese ethnicity after Indians had lived in Guyana for 170 years. But there is no Guyanese ethnicity! Ethnicity is essentially racial identity. Pray tell, what exactly is the Guyanese race?
4. You tell Elizabeth that she of the Indian ethnicity “should be forever grateful.” To whom? Guyana? People calling themselves Guyanese only? But you want Elizabeth to call her Guyanese only, and not Indo or American! Should she be grateful to herself? Or do you mean she should be grateful to black people like yourself? This is nonsense spun over rubbish.
5. Here;s the big one, Ric. You say to Elizabeth, “Stop patronizing my country and my heritage with your hypocrisy.” This my country is Guyana I presume, which means that you are excluding a woman whom you want to call herself Guyanese only, from the country of Guyana, which is by definition NOT Elizabeth’s country but yours! I believe you are also excluding Elizabeth from your heritage while still calling on her to declare herself a Guyanese with claims to that Guyanese heritage. You have one major case of foot in mouth disease, Ric.
6 You say our ethnicities are determined by our country of birth and not by our foreparents. Wrong, Ric, 100 percent wrong.
7. You say to all concerned Leave Guyana to Guyanese! But who exactly is a Guyanese person. Anybody of Indian ancestry, Amerindian, Chinese, European, Portuguese, mixed? Oh I get it, true Guyanese are really black people like you! I think you may have a future in comedy Ric!
8. Finally, the monster mash. You lecture the Indo Guyanese that “They are searching for a non-black identity, i.e., they are afraid to be labelled ”black”. This makes no sense. Indo Guyanese are not searching for a non-black identity, whatever that is. They have an ethnic identity- Indo, they have a cultural identity- Indian culture, and they have a national identity such as Guyanese if they live in Guyana and have citizenship there. They don’t want a black identity, they don;t need a black identity! What is the value of a black identity for an Indo anyway? Which Indian in is right mind would want to be a black person like you, Ric? Come on speak up, tell Elizabeth and the 2 million Indo Caribbeans why they should throw out their Indian identity and take up a black one?
Ram
Bravo Ric! Sadly this blog family has been silent on such a very old radical ideology that has been the “root” cause of Guyana’s political, religious, racist, injustice, and nationalistic upheaval for decades. And, unless we as a people call out these idealogs for the misinterpretation of our history, then just like ISIS who plays on the emotions of the weak to justify their barbaric extremist views of religion and civilization, then this young lady with her nationalist views of Colonial Guyana, is frightening.
You know, I’ve read Bernadette Persaud’s “Roots and Identity ” and immediately this very topic came to mind. In her writing, she addresses Charles “obsession” for many years with the “Colonial Old House” and his old futile quest for “roots and Identity.” Sadly, after centuries of colonial exploitation, we still have young educated people of Indian roots, still searching for political self determination and “Identity “. Notwithstanding the fact that the fore parents of these nationalist who themselves, could not read nor write, made the choice not to return to their homeland. These people were themselves exploited and treated poorly but
choose the sure thing by making Guyana their homeland because India for them was no bed-a-roses. Notably, India’s caste system was racism at its worst and that “slave ship” to Guyana and the rest of the world, was the best thing that ever happened to those poor folks.
So, for Guyanese of Indian extraction who are still searching for an identity; Guyana is not the place for you. Perhaps, you may want to move to India; then Lucknow may be a place to move to, but remember you must be very “light skinned” and affluent because no dark skin and poor people live there, or Jaipur but you may not like it there either. Or, perhaps old New Delhi(Agra) but you may immediately need a return ticket to Guyana. Boy, you do not know why your fore parents left India because they just may have a few harsh words for you. So be careful what you wish for.
On the other hand, Guyana is for Guyanese. If you “people” cannot identify with our culture please leave. Remember this, People leave their homeland everyday to seek a better future in other countries and it is never easy but nothing in life is promised to anyone. We all have to work hard and “suck it up.” But, it seems that people of your extraction are forever complaining and it is always against the black people of Guyana. What is it that is promised you? I am confused.
Go fashion a recreative passtime for youself, you idiot. If you want to be an indian so badly, go take it up with the people of India. And ifthey let you’ and i hope to God they do, get the F… out of Guyana and go back to Bengal. You f… ingrate. Your intelligence -or lack thereof- is laughable. Who appointed you the defender of”indo” womanhood?
There is so much foolishness and hate being tossed around by a couple of anti-Indian racists here that I have to dispel a couple of their misrepresentations, aside from “Indo” issue. But as a small observation, no problem of course for them that Obama refers to himself as “African American” and a newspaper just this weekend refers to the Indian child who plays Mowgli (Rudyard Kipling’s) as “Indian-American” but a Guyanese or anyone of Guyanese Indian ancestry is scalded for using the prefix “Indo”.
Now let’s turn to the ‘Bengal Famine’ issue. Hinds cite this as a failure of India – the ‘glorious’ motherland – to support its people thus causing indentured Indians (including 10-year old girls) to scurry to Br. Guiana for survival. Hinds and his buddy, Tata, must have been reading Clem Seecharan – the coconut Indian.
The British East India Co. (a BBC documentay called it the biggest corporation in the world) diverted land use from food to opium production (for shipment to China causing huge numbers of Chinese to become addicts) and Indigo, as well as, steeply raising punishing land taxes and precluding farmers from saving/hoarding grains for hard times, all in the name of profits, for Britons. “The Great Bengal famine of 1770 was one of a series of famines in India under British colonial rule that would continue killing tens of millions of Indians into the late 19th century and beyond”. Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bengal_famine_of_1770
Yet these are not the only times British imperialism decimated Bengalis. Even after indentureship was halted, the British still treated India as its breadbasket and, of course, its ‘Jewel in the Crown’ to fatten Britons and exploit ‘beastly Indians’ to the point death, literally. There was the (WWII) 1943 Famine. Australian biochemist Dr. Gidgeon Polya called the 1943 famine a “manmade holocaust” by the British Gov’t with Churchill being the architect. ‘While the Nazis took 12 years to round-up and murder 12 million Jews, Roma (Indian ancestry) and Slavs the British decimated 4 million in just one year- 1943. While 1942 was a “bountiful year” the British diverted the food to Britain causing massive food shortages’. ‘Churchill regarded wheat as too precious a food to expend on Indians’. Read here: http://www.tehelka.com/2014/06/remembering-indias-forgotten-holocaust/
Ric Hinds and his ally, Tata, would be happy to read about Indians who were failed by their motherland, India. So here is a description for their enjoyment. Afterall, Churchill, their likely colonial ally also, did call Indians “beastly people, with a beastly religion”.
‘Mukherjee tracks down some of the survivors of the famine and paints a chilling tale of the effects of hunger and deprivation. Parents dumped their starving children into rivers and wells. Many took their lives by throwing themselves in front of trains. Starving people begged for the starchy water in which rice had been boiled. Children ate leaves and vines, yam stems and grass. People were too weak even to cremate their loved ones. “No one had the strength to perform rites,” a survivor tells Mukherjee. Dogs and jackals feasted on piles of dead bodies in Bengal’s villages. The ones who got away were men who migrated to Calcutta for jobs and women who turned to prostitution to feed their families. “Mothers had turned into murderers, village belles into whores, fathers into traffickers of daughters,” writes Mukherjee.’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/soutikbiswas/2010/10/how_churchill_starved_india.html
Much to cheer about, Hinds and Tata. I will deal with the caste issue later.
Veda Nath Mohabir
Before I get lost in the labyrinth of references, I wish to offer this gem of a quote, by Sam Chase to his sidekick, Jack Mello.
“So, if a cat gives birth in a baker-shop oven, you will call the kittens – bread???”
You know you are not a Guyanese if; you have to ask, “Who is Sam Chase?”
Hopefully it will cast some light on a topic that has generated much heat,
@ Ric Hinds. The term “Kaffir” is Gandhi’s term for Africans, not mine.He was the acknowledged leader of the Indian community in South Africa and I am simply pointing out that that is what his attitude was at the time. On this thread we also have the Indo-Trinidadian Toronto-based community leader Mr. Ram Jagessar who not only has referred to Guyanese Blacks as “the enemy” but in one of his editorials when he was editor of the “Indo-Caribbean World” stated clearly that East Indians in North America need not feel any loyalty to any other group but their own. So, who are you Hinds, to tell anyone otherwise??? “Indo-Guyanese-American” given the young lady’s history, is just about right.
I see Thinker has risen to the defence of Ric Hinds. Excellent, except that he wasn’t thinking a lot about his comments on Gandhi’s use of the word kaffir.
If he had done any research at all he would have discovered that Mahatma Gandhi did not invent the word kaffir for black Africans in South Africa. That was the word used by the apartheid white South Africans to describe the blacks, and was in common use in the society at the time. Gandhi was merely using the word in common usage.
And why is he throwing Gandhi in our face? Gandhi was an Indian political leader a long time ago, who also worked in South Africa. Indo-Caribbeans and Indo Guyanese had a great deal of respect for him at the time, but we are not going to be judged or slapped down by such as Thinker by what Gandhi said or did.
Secondly, Thinker doesn’t t seem to understand that the word kaffir goes way back beyond South Africa and comes from the Muslims and the Koran. Yes, Mr Non-Thinker, kaffir is an Arabic world for non-believer or unbeliever. It is mentioned dozens of times in the Koran, and anyone can check that in an online version of the Koran or on the website https://www.politicalislam.com/sharia-law-for-non-muslims-chapter-5-the-kafir/
As to my saying Indo-Guyanese regarded Guyanese blacks as the enemy, that is the simple truth. Guyana is a country that has had race war and killings and an apartheid like system by MINORITY black people against the MAJORITY Indo-Guyanese. Maybe Thinker would like to answer the question, how do the Guyanese blacks regard the Indo-Guyanese? Do the blackies see the Indos as their friends and fellow countrymen? That’s why they supported Burnham when he drove hundreds of thousands of Indo Guyanese out into exile, and why they are supporting the PNC President Granger as he is working up to be Burnham Round Two. Thinker had better change his name to Joker.
Thinker seems to feel I will be embarassed at the revelation that I said East Indians in North America need not feel any loyalty to any other group but their own. Wrong again. That is the reality. We have many things in common and shared experiences with other East Indians from the Caribbean, and naturally we cling to our own. Which outside group would Thinker suggest we feel loyalty to, and why? We come here as immigrants or refugees, and we willingly agree to obey the laws of the land, and swear loyalty to Canada or the USA at our citizenship ceremonies. I have sworn loyalty to the Queen as head of state for Canada and I have no problem with that. But don’t tell me about loyalty to any ethnic/cultural sub group in Canada. That is my choice, and Thinker, Ric Hinds Tata and other blackies have no say in the matter. Do they suggest that we East Indians/Indo Caribbeans feel some loyalty to black Caribbeans? I would not be safe to suggest to Indo Guyanese that they feel loyalty to the black Guyanese who drove them out of their homeland. They would put a proper cut-ass on me and they would be right!
And what example have the black Caribbeans in North America shown for us? Do they feel loyalty to any other group but their own? Have they shown or expressed any loyalty to us Indo Caribbeans?
Thinker has to come up with some kind of logical argument to support his comments. I will tell him straight, step into this ring to deliver blows only if you have a good defence against the blows you are surely going to receive.
For clarity “Kaffir” means unbeliever in Islam. So, this is most likely what was meant in Africa. It didn’t have the baggage it has in Guyana.
Kafir (Arabic: كافر kāfir; plural كفّار kuffār; feminine كافرة kāfirah) is an Arabic term … “unbeliever”, “disbeliever”, or “infidel”. ….The term alludes to a person who rejects or disbelieves in God and the religious truth revealed through the mission of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and thus demonstrates ingratitude towards God; denies, refuses to accept the dominion and authority of God; or otherwise does not heed the beliefs and prescriptions held by the religion of Islam. Unbelief is called kufr. Kafir is sometimes used interchangeably with mushrik (مشرك, those who commit polytheism), [viz. Hindus] another type of religious wrongdoer mentioned frequently in the Quran and Islamic works. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafir
Thus, Hindus, too, have been dubbed, “Kafir”. In 2009, a Hindu organization in India had “written a letter to [Muslim] Deoband authorities to take steps to correct two `inaccuracies’ — past references in Islamic texts to India as Dar-ul-Harb or an enemy country and reference to Hindus as kafirs. ” http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Hindus-cant-be-dubbed-kafir-says-Jamiat/articleshow/4179187.cms
Veda Nath Mohabir
Kaffir has always been a derogatory term whether in South Africa or elsewhere. Much more deliberately offensive than Ram Jagessar’s blackie. The Muslims always made a distinction between the lands they ruled, Dar-Al-Islam, and Dar-Al-Harb, where they didn’t. So basically anywhere in India outside Mughal rule would have been Dar-Al-Harb. There can be no undoing of that historical reality and it cannot be applied sensibly to India today. Should Hindus ask Muslims to apologise for hitting them on the head when submitting the poll-tax (while Christians and Jews as ‘People of the Book’ were merely spat upon)? Those of the Deobandi school are the wrong people to approach.
I am not rising to the defence of Hinds and I am fully aware of the origins of the word kaffir, thank you.. I am pointing out, like you and all others that people have the right to define themselves as they wish and to associate themselves with whomever they wish. The more pertinent issue would be participation in any organisation abroad that would seek to lable itself “Guyanese”. Your ad hominems are wasted on me. Speaking of Blacks as the enemy was your choice. I don’t think of any group as my enemy. I had asked you to tell us more of your Trinidadian enemies. Go ahead.
I don’t usually like to debate online with people hiding under pen names. like Thinker for example.
Perhaps the Thinker whoever or whatever he or she is would like to tell this forum his/her identity, and declare something about identity and origins. I make no secret of mine, and anyone can google me or check my Facebook and Twitter pages.
Let’s see the Thinker out in the open. He/she doesn’t get any more cheap shots from the darkness.
And that applies to the aptly named Tata as well!
Well don’t debate.
That sounds good to me.
Thinker can get lost
I will advise members of this forum not to discuss any matters with opinionated cowards hiding in the shadows.
By the way, does anybody know who this Ric Hinds character is? He sounds like the usual black racist spewing bile and obscenities, but when I google his or her name I get nothing at all except references to his posts on this thread.
I propose we ignore his nasty comments until we can figure out who or what he is.
With all the acrimonious debate going on we need to revisit what Liz Jaikaran actually said:
“[My] heritage is commonly packaged in a number of different terms, all of which are heavily used as referential identifiers: Indo-Guyanese. Indo-Caribbean. Caribbean. West Indian. Indian. It is most aptly described as the Indo-Caribbean experience—an experience that is shared by Indians living throughout the Caribbean diaspora and thus serving as the blueprint for my existence.
“This unique cultural disposition is why the Indo-Caribbean are able to culturally identify with public figures [such as] Nicki Minaj [and why] bursts of Caribbean intonation in Rihanna’s voice blanket me in the comfort of home,
“…..My family is a multiracial one—I have Indian, African, and Chinese ancestry…..
“I venerated the Indian traditions at my disposal just as much as I did the traditions that West Indians have carved out over time by way of Caribbean music and unique fusion cuisines. While my mom prepared meals of curried shrimp and roti, she would dance to Byron Lee and The Draggonaires. While my dad idolized Bob Marley as a musical genius…
So, even ‘venerating the traditions that West Indians have carved out over time by way of Caribbean music and unique fusion cuisines’ such as, ‘the Indo-Caribbean are able to culturally identify with public figures such as Nicki Minaj or ‘why bursts of Caribbean intonation in Rihanna’s voice blanket me in the comfort’ nor ‘her mom would dance to Byron Lee and The Draggonaires wile cooking and my dad idolized Bob Marley as a musical genius’ are insufficient to prove her obviously genuine liking for her Caribbean culture are insufficient to palliate Ric Hinds and Tata.
But what clearly upset Hinds and Tata is:
“Despite having this rich, multicultural background, my Indian heritage has played the largest role in both my upbringing and my understanding of myself. It is the heritage that governs the traditions that I’ve grown up with, and that inform my decisions with respect to who I identify as my cultural kin.”
For these blatant racists, any association to Indianness is being an ‘apostate’, blasphemous because she didn’t use BLACK as her only identifier.
Even recognizing that some South Asians would see her differently doesn’t console these racists, either; nor explaining why she provides the simple identifier:
“Sometimes, I refer to myself as simply “Indian” even though many South Asians would not regard me as such. It is often just easier to provide an answer that people can easily understand rather than undertake the laborious process of explaining the geographic quandary of being brown but not directly from South Asia.”
But it all has to do with the fact that she doesn’t identify as Black, which burns the intolerant bullying racists – Ric Hinds and Tata. No wonder Indo-Guyanese left Guyana in droves (including myself in 1969 with a promising future in more than one field – computers, Theatre and radio) once their ‘kith and kin’ got into political power under the PNC/Burnham/Hoyte and then continued to ‘in your face’ bullyingly/forcefully/blatantly steal power for over twenty years. The Wismar ethnic cleansing is a product of their thinking and why the ignominious date, May 26, was chosen for Guyana’s independence. It is to sear it into Indo-Guyanese minds that they are just ‘Bangali’ Indians not Black and must behave accordingly.
I commend you, Elizabeth Jaikaran, for boldly and assertively laying out your identity, as you see it. Way to go, girl!
Veda Nath Mohabir
I add my congratulations to Elizabeth Jaikaran.
ENOUGH (bastante): your fight for a hyphenated identity should be with the Government of Mr. Narendra Modi and the people of India, not with me. I cannot validate your respective identities – and that also goes for those who refer to themselves with the ” Afro ”prefix – but i can tell you that i am ashamed of what the nationality of ”GUYANESE” has become.
I say again to all on this forum. Do not respond to this turd Ric Hinds. He is desperate to provoke a fight with somebody. It seems most likely Ric Hinds is a pen name, behind which hides racist coward. Flush him.
Mr Moderator, would you kindly block Ric Hinds? He adds nothing worthwhile to these discussions..
Ric Hinds, you wrote: ” They [“Indo Guyanese”] are searching for a non-black identity, i.e., they are afraid to be labelled ”black”.
You owe readers an explanation how the identifier “Indo-Guyanese” and not just “Guyanese” imply that the ‘Indos’ are afraid of being labelled “black”. What is is about ‘Guyanese’ makes a person “black” ?
Come on Hinds, man-up, readers want to hear from you.
VNM
As I try to follow the conversation here, I am reminded of bauxite mining in Guyana: There is valuable ore in there …… if only you can get through the overburden!
I recall a very, very enjoyable time in my life when I was always ‘sent’ to Leguan for the major school holidays. August month was always the best. Myself and my country cousins got into all sorts of everything.
In retrospect, those were the days without qualifiers like the “hyphen”. We were East Indian, Black, Portuguese and Chinese.. Disharmony could be detected when we would “throw tantalize” – out of earshot of elders! exempli gratia.
“Coolie wata rice …”
“Black man sala …..”
Both sentiments were ‘positively spun’ (tell me that you like the expression) in the electioneering ditty of the 1950’s.
“Doctor Jagan, Lawyer Burnham;
Fighting for Coolie and Black -man freedom”
Did you notice the sneaky introduction of the “hyphen’?
The qualifier that first impinged upon my consciousness was the ‘parenthesis’ – as in “PPP (Jaganite faction)” and “PPP (Burnhamite Faction)”. My father’s brother worked at the “PWD yard” in Kingston. He wore the latter button on his beret at work. “No black people would trouble me; once I wear this”, was his explanation to his mother, for such ‘ungratefulness to Cheddie’ (my grandmother’s words).
In my own experience, the prefix ‘Afro’ was first followed by ‘hairstyle’ and ‘shirt’.
‘Indo’ was followed by ‘China’.
There was that period when we were on a roll to discard the “tawdry baubles of Colonialism”. The necktie was first to go. Cde. replaced Mr. and Mrs. In between there were such clumsy forms of address as “Comrade Married Female Persaud”.
If you think that “Afro” and “Indo” are unnecessary prefixes to “Guyanese”, I tender in evidence how the American classification has expanded. Forty years ago there were three. ‘White’, ‘Black’ and ‘Other’. Recently I signed a document that displayed SIX classifications. None of them was descriptive enough for ME (Mrs. Persaud’s No.1 son); so I just checked “Other”.
Human beings have two seemingly conflicting needs – ‘Group’ needs and ‘Individual’ needs. We will join a “Service” club to show that we subscribe to its mission of Charity. It is only a matter of time before we run for the office of Treasurer because of our individual and particular need(s).
Finally, one more relevant narrative. My uncle Herman, just 7 years older, were having a drink (Okay, a few!) when the young lady behind the bar-counter asked where we were from. (That mud land accent sticks to you like mud).
The answer was classically “uncle-Herman-esque”.
“East Indian by ancestry,
Guyanese by birth.
I am British by adoption.
He is American by choice.”
The young lady ended it with, “I am very sorry I asked!”
In all of this we must be careful to avoid nostalgic creations of a mythical time in the colonial era when Africans and Indians lived together in harmony and cooperated so well together it was magical. No such time existed in Guyana, nor in Trinidad either.
And why could it be that Africans and Indians did not live harmoniously together? Because in the colonial era Africans and Indians did not live together, silly. Most Indians lived in the country in largely Indian villages in or around the sugar estates and other estates. Most Africans lived in and around the towns (where there were few Indians) or in mostly African villages in the countryside. Many Indians will tell you that when they were growing up there were no Africans at all in their villages or schools, or at most one or two percent. I am sure it was the same for the Africans.
So let’s get the facts. In the indentureship era from 1838 to 1917 there was pretty much zero living together of Africans living in the towns and black villages with Indians living on the estates or free Indians living nearby. There was no question of harmony or disharmony.
In the post indentureship era to the fifties, still in the colonial era the situation remained basically the same, with Indians and Africans largely separated by residence, and sharing little or nothing but poverty and oppression by the colonial powers.
So wherefore and when did this mythical unity and harmony come about? It never did, silly.
Could the Africans and Indians have loved each other from a distance and worked together in spirit if not flesh? How have they felt about each other from the beginning?
The good history books have no illusions about this part. From the start the Africans hated and despised the Indian indentured workers whether a s bound coolies or free coolies. They saw the Indians as weak, backward heathen, illiterate and ignorant. superstitious, dirty, clannish and stingy. They were hostile to any Indians who tried to enter the towns. They would jeer at Indians found outside the estates, saying where is your free paper, bound coolie? To this day, some Africans still say the coolies came as strike breakers to work the estates and prevented the freed slaves from cutting a better deal with the estate owners. It’s a dead lie, but they believe it anyway. The Africans gave Indians no respect for saving the sugar estates and the colony’s economy, no respect for growing food to feed the Africans, no respect for developing the rural areas of Guyana. The Africans of that era dished out near total contempt for Indians and I leave it to the reader to decide how different it was for the rest of the 20th century and how it is today.
And did the Indians have love and respect for the Africans? No way, Jose. They hated and despised the Africans, not for any imagined wrongs but for the way the Africans treated them, the strangers in the new land. Indians kept as far away from Africans as they could Besides, it was the colonial era. Colonialism is bred upon racism, oppression, divide and rule, deculturisation It’s all there in the history books for all to see.
To conclude, was there not any time when the Africans and Indians worked together in harmony for some common aim? Sure there was , in the early years of the PPP when Afros and Indos did seem to pull together. That period lasted roughly ten years before Burnham pulled the Africans away from the PPP and the era of permanent racial division and competition began. Ten years out of 176 since Indians and Africans came together in the then colony of Demerara. Hooray for the great days of racial harmony and love! I am only jokjing of course. So should you when this silly topic comes up again.
Many thought Gigi was bad but this is a more novel presentation.
Ram I am a curious learner. Love to know how this mass racial hate was generated. In my youthful years I read and worked in many Indian communites in Berbice after growing up in Georgetown. Thought I learned a bit in the process. Your views are a bit novel. Did I miss something From what source did you develop your views:
Did you do a sociological study.
Was it from observations. If so in which parts of Guyana.
Was it from reading, which books
You seem to want a bibliography for Guyana, Albert.
Here’s a short one. Read something before exposing your ignorance.
Bibliography / Book List: Guyana
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To help on your search for knowledge we provide the following bibliographies / book lists. The variety of subject matter these publications cover foretells of the diversity you will find in the country. Specific titles are sometimes hard to find. Even if your local bookstore or library doesn’t have the specific titles listed, pick up what is available. We welcome you comments and suggestions on books and articles to add.
“Guyana: Poor Man’s Gold Rush,” Economist [London], May 12, 1990, 42, 46.
Abrams, Ovid S. Metegee: The History and Culture of Guyana. Eldorado Publications, 1998.
Adamson, Alan H. Sugar Without Slaves: The Political Economy of British Guiana, 1838-1904. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972.
Akhtar, Shameen. British Guiana: A Study of Marxism and Racialism in the Caribbean. Dallas: Southern Methodist University, 1962.
Arbell, Mordechai. Jewish Nation of the Caribbean: The Spanish-Portuguese Jewish Settlements in the Carribean and the Guianas. Gefen Publishing House, 2002
Augies, F.R., S.C. Gordon, D.G. Hall, and M. Reckford. The Making of the West Indies. London: Longmans, 1960.
Avebury, and the British Parliamentary Human Rights Group. “Guyana’s 1980 Elections: The Politics of Fraud,” Caribbean Review, 10, Spring 1981, 8-11, 14.
Bacchus, M.K. Education for Development or Underdevelopment?: Guyana’s Educational System and Its Implications for the Third World. (Development Perspectives Series, No. 2.) Waterloo, Canada: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1980.
Bancroft, Edward. Essay on the Natural History of Guiana. Arno Press.
Bartels, Dennis. “Class Conflict and Racist Ideology in the Formation of Modern Guyanese Society,” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology [Toronto], 14, No. 4, November 1977, 396-405.
Bell, Judith. “Guyana-Suriname.” Pages 346-53 in Alan J. Day (ed.), Border and Territorial Disputes. Harlow, United Kingston: Longman Group, 1987.
Benjamin, Joel (ed), Ian McDonald (ed), Lakshmi Kallicharan (ed) and Lloyd Seawar (ed). They Came in Ships: An Anthology of Indo-Guyanese Prose and Poetry. Peepal Tree Press, 1997.
Bisnauth, Dale. The East Indian Immigrant Society in British Guiana. Peepal Tree Press, 1996.
Bisnauth, Dale. Settlement of Indians in Guyana, 1890-1930. Peepal Tree Press, 2001.
Bolland, O. Nigel. “Systems of Domination after Slavery: The Control of Land and Labor in the British West Indies after 1838,” Comparative Studies in Society and History [Cambridge, United Kingston], 23, No. 4, 1981, 591-619.
Braveboy-Wagner, Jacqueline Anne. The Venezuela-Guyana Border Dispute. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1984.
Brereton, Bridget, and Winston Dookeran (eds.). East Indians in the Caribbean: Colonialism and the Struggle for Identity. (Papers presented to a symposium on East Indians in the Caribbean, The University of the West Indies.) Millwood, New York: Kraus International, 1982.
Brett, William Henry. Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indian of British Guiana. Kessinger Publishing Co., 2003.
Brotherson, Festus Jr. “Burnham-Bashing: Hoyte Fiddles While Guyana Burns,” Caribbean Review, 3, No. 3, July-September 1990, 16, 17, 79, 81, 82.
Brotherson, Festus Jr. “Hoyte Takes the Other Road,” Caribbean Contact [Bridgetown, Barbados], 18, No. 3, November-December 1990, 8, 9.
Burnham, Forbes. A Great Future Together. Georgetown: Government Printery, 1968.
Burrowes, Reynold A. The Wild Coast: An Account of Politics in Guyana. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Schenkman, 1984.
Campbell, Nills Learmond. “Disunity Hoyte’s Trump Card,”Caribbean Contact [Bridgetown, Barbados], 18, No. 3, November-December 1990, 8.
Costa, Emilia Viotti. Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood: The Demerara Slave Rebellion of 1823. Oxford Univ. Press, 1994.
Cross, Malcolm, and Gad Heuman (eds.). Labour in the Caribbean: From Emancipation to Independence. London: Macmillian, 1988.
Damore, Kelley. “Dispute over Essequibo Coast,” Washington Report on the Hemisphere, 8, No. 21, July 20, 1988, 1-6.
de Angelis, Gina. Jonestown Massacre: Tragic End of a Cult. Enslow Publishers, 2002.
de Barros, Juanita. Order and Place in a Colonial City: Patterns of Struggle and Resistance in Georgetown, British Guiana, 1889-1924. McGill-Queens, 2003.
de Caires, David. “Guyana after Burnham: A New Era? Or Is President Hoyte Trapped in the Skin of the PNC?” Caribbean Affairs, 1, January-March 1988, 183-93.
Drummond, Lee. “The Cultural Continuum: A Theory of Intersystems,” Man [London], 15, No. 2, 1980, 352-74.
Fauriol, Georges A. Foreign Policy Behavior of Caribbean States: Guyana, Haiti, and Jamaica. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1984.
Fredericks, Marcel, John Lennon, Paul Mundy, and Janet Fredericks. Society and Health in Guyana: The Sociology of Health Care in a Developing Nation. Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 1986.
French, Howard W. “Guyana Marxist, Mellowed, Makes a Comeback,” New York Times, July 5, 1991, A10.
Gibbs, Allan and Christopher Barron. Geology of the Guyana Shield. Oxford Univ. Press, 1993.
Gibson, Kean. Cycle of Racial Oppression in Guyana. University Press of America, 2003.
Glascow, R.A. Guyana: Race and Politics among Africans and East Indians. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1970.
Hall, John R. Gone from the Promised Land: Jonestown as American Cultural History. Transaction Publishers, 2001.
Hintzen, Percy C. Costs of Regime Survival: Racial Mobilization, Elite Domination and Control of the State in Guyana and Trinidad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Hollett, David. Passage from India to El Dorado: Guyana and the Great Migration. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999.
Hope, Kempe Ronald. “Electoral Politics and Political Development in Post-Independence Guyana,” Electoral Studies, 4, April 1985, 57-68.
Hope, Kempe Ronald. Guyana: Politics and Development in an Emergent Socialist State. New York: Mosaic Press, 1985.
Jagan, Cheddi. West on Trial, My Fight for Guyana’s Freedom. New York: International, 1972.
Jagan, Cheddi. Forbidden Freedom: The Story of British Guiana. Penguin Publishing, 1999.
Jayawardena, Chandra. “Culture and Identity in Guyana and Fiji,” Man [London], 15, No. 3, 1980, 430-50.
Jayawardena, Chandra. “Religious Belief and Social Change: Aspects of the Development of Hinduism in British Guiana,” Comparative Studies in Society and History [Cambridge, United Kingdom], 8, No. 2, January 1966, 211-40.
Jeffrey, Henry B., and Colin Baber. Guyana: Politics, Economics, and Society–Beyond the Burnham Era. Boulder, Colorado: Rienner, 1986.
Kyte, Cwolde. Caribbean Medicine Forward to Eden: A Source Book on the Healing Modalities of Guyana, the Caribbean and the Americas. Center for Sacred Healing Arts Publishing Co., 1988.
Landis, Joseph B. “Racial Attitudes of Africans and Indians in Guyana,” Social and Economic Studies [Kingston, Jamaica], 22, No. 4, December 1968, 426-39.
Lawrence, KO. A Question of Labour: Indentured Immigration into Trinidad and British Guiana, 1875-1917. St Martin’s Press, 1994.
Mandle, Jay R. The Plantation Economy: Population and Economic Change in Guyana, 1838-1960. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1973.
Manley, Robert H. (Rev., James Wessman.) “Cooperative Republic of Guyana.” Pages 446-50 in George E. Delury (ed.), World Encyclopedia of Political Systems & Parties (2 Volume Set). New York: Facts on File, 1987.
Manley, Robert H. Guyana Emergent: The Post-Independence Struggle for Nondependent Development. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Schenkman, 1982.
Mangu, Basdeo. Indians in Guyana: A Concise History from Their Arrival to the Present. Basdeo Mangu, 1999.
McDonald, Scott. “Guyana.” Pages 445-58 in James M. Malloy and Eduardo A. Gamarra (eds.), Latin America and Caribbean Contemporary Record, 1987-1988. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1990.
Menez, Mary Noel. Amerindians in Guyana, 1803-1873: A Documentary History. Frank Cass, 1979.
Mitrasing, F.E.M. The Border-Conflict Between Surinam and Guiana. Paramaribo, Suriname: Kersten, 1975.
Moore, Brian L. Cultural Power, Resistance and Pluralism: Colonial Guyana, 1838-1900. McGill-Queens Univ. Press, 1995.
Munroe, Andrew. Caribbean Stories: Supernatural Tales of Guyana. Golden Grove Publishing, 1994.
Odie-Ali, Stella. “Women in Agriculture: The Case of Guyana,” Social and Economic Studies [Kingston, Jamaica], 35, No. 2, June 1986, 241-89.
Peake, Linda and D Alissa Trotz. Gender Ethnicity and Place: Women and Identity in Guyana. Routledge, 1999.
Potter, Lesley M. “The Post-Indenture Experience of East Indians in Guyana, 1873-1921.” Pages 71-92 in Bridget Brereton and Winston Dookeran (eds.). East Indians in the Caribbean: Colonialism and the Struggle for Identity. (Papers presented to a symposium on East Indians in the Caribbean, the University of the West Indies.) Millwood, New York: Kraus International, 1982.
Premdas, Ralph R. “Guyana: Socialist Reconstruction or Political Opportunism?” Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs, 20, No. 2, May 1978, 133-63.
Premdas, Ralph R. Ethnic Conflict and Development: The Case of Guyana. Ashgate Publishing, 1995
Rauf, M.A. Indian Village in Guyana: A Study of Cultural Change and Ethnic Identity. Brill Academic Publishers.
Rivière, Peter. Individual and Society in Guiana: A Comparative Study of AmerIndian Social Organization. Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Roberts, G.W., and J. Byrne. “Summary Statistics on Indenture and Associated Migration Affecting the West Indies, 1834-1918,” Population Studies [London], 20, No. 1, July 1966, 125-34.
Rodney, Walter. History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881-1905. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
Rodway, James. History of British Guiana, from the Year 1668 to the Present Time. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1988.
Roopnarine, Lomarsh. East Indian Women and Labor in Guyana (online article)
_____“Small-scale Gold Mining and Environmental Policy Challenges in Guyana’s Interior Region.” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Vol. 31. No.61. Spring 2005:115-144.
_____“Environmental Policy Changes and Growth in Guyana.” In Living at Borderlines: Issues in Caribbean Sovereignty and Development. Cynthia Barrow-Giles and Don Marshall (eds.), Kingston, Ian Randle Publishers, 2003: 276-303.
_____“East Indian Emigration to the Caribbean: Beyond the Push and Pull Model” Caribbean Studies. Vol. 31. No. 2, Spring 2004: 97-134.
_____ “Indo-Caribbean Migration: From Periphery to Core.” Caribbean Quarterly. Vol. 49. No. 3, Fall 2003: 30-60.
_____ “Wounding Guyana: Gold Mining and Environmental Degradation.” European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies Vol. 73, October 2002: 83-91.
_____ “Indo-Guyanese Migration: From Plantation to Metropolis!” Immigrants and Minorities. Vol. 20. No. 2, 2001: 1-25.
_____ “Politics, Economics and Environmental Policy in Guyana.” Journal of Caribbean History. Vol. 34. No.1 & 2, 2000: 178-217.
_____ “The Dual Legacy of Antigua’s First Prime Minister Vere Bird, 1909-1999.” Revista/Review Interamericana. Vol. 30. No. 1-4, 2000: 1-8.(on line article)
Roth, Walter. Additional Studies of the Arts, Crafts and Customs of the Guiana Indians, with Special Reference to Those Southern British Guiana. Reprint Services Corp, 1995.
Roth, Walter. Inquiry into the Animism and Folklore of the Guiana Indians. Johnson Reprint Corp,
Sanders, Andrew. The Powerless People: An Analysis of the Amerindians of the Corentyne River. (Warwick University Caribbean Studies.) London: Macmillian, 1987.
Seecharan, Clem. Bechu: “Bound Coolie” Radical in British Guiana, 1894-1901. Univ. of West Indies, 2000.
Singh, Chaitram. Guyana: Politics in a Plantation Society. New York: Praeger, 1988.
Singh, Jagdish R. Days of Laughter. Sincere Books, 2010. Depicts some of the childhood experiences of many who lived in Guyana during the 1950s and 60s.
Smith, Raymond T. Kinship and Class in the West Indies: A Genealogical Study of Jamaica and Guyana. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Smith, Raymond T. Negro Family in British Guiana: Family Structure and Social Status in the Villages. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956.
Spinner, Thomas J., Jr. “Guyana Update: Political, Economic, and Moral Bankruptcy,” Caribbean Review, 11, No. 4, Fall 1982, 9-11, 30-32.
Spinner, Thomas J., Jr. A Political and Social History of Guyana, 1945-1983. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1984.
Strachan, A.J. “Return Migration to Guyana,” Social and Economic Studies [Kingston, Jamaica], 32, No. 3, September 1983, 121-42.
Thomas, Clive Y. Plantations, Peasants, and State: A Study of the Mode of Sugar Production in Guyana. CAAS Publications, 1984.
Upper Mazaruni Amerindian District Council Staf, Amerindian Peoples Association of Guyana Staff, Forest Peoples Programme Staff. Indigenous Peoples, Land Rights and Mining in the Upper Mazaruni. Global Law Association, 2000.
Vasil. Jaj K. Politics in Bi-Racial Societies: The Third World Experience. Delhi: Vikas, 1984.
Williams, Brackette. Stains on My Name, War in My Veins: Guyana and the Politics of Cultural Struggle. Duke Univ. Press, 1991.
Williams, Denis. Prehistoric Guiana. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 2003
Worrell, DeLisle. “The Impoverishment of Guyana.” Pages 79-109 in Rosemary Thorp (ed.). Latin America in the 1930’s: The Role of the Periphery in World Crisis. London: Macmillan, 1984.
Zambrano Velasco, José Alberto. The Essequibo: Our Historic Claim. Caracas: Ministry of Foreign Relations, 1982.
If you have a favorite that should be added to the list please let us know.
Latin American Network Information Center: Guyana An excellent set of links for information on Guyana.
So this novel hate theory is your own. The market is not large enough to profiteer on such a topic..
Places like Rosignol, WCB or Alness Corentyne would contradict your hate theory.
Please read something from the list, Albert. You don’t seem to have any idea of race relations in the colonial era in Guyana, even though this is a well explored topic. Your attempt at being flip, clever and condescending is not working.
Here are some more additions:
Bahadur, G- Coolie Woman
Narine Dhanpaul and Gosine Mahin- From Sojourners to Settlers, Windsor Press 1999
Narine, Dhanpaul and Mahin Gosine,- The New Indenture: Indo-Caribbean People in America, Windsor Press 2005
Narine, Dhanpaul- Resettling Guyana’s Amerindians, Ministry of Energy, Guyana 1978.
Narine, Dhanpaul- America in Crisis 2010, Vitasta Press
Midgeley, J and Narine, Dhanpaul et al- Community Participation, Social Development and the State, London Methuen 1885.
Correction, the last entry was supposed to read 1985 although 1885 would have been more romantic!
It’s really quite amazing how some Guyanese continue to deny reality that is there in front of their eyes. Guyana has had colonial isolation of the two major races, deliberate divide and rule and promoting of racial animosities by the British colonials, fierce ethnic competition for power, race war, racial dictatorship by a minority group, forced exile of the majority of the majority racial group, openly race based crime and so much more.
Yet when I say the simple truth that Guyana has never had a time in the colonial era when the Africans and Indian lived together in harmony and peace, some idiot will jump up to say this is a novel theory I have concocted.
I say the provable historical truth that in the indentures era the Indians and Africans lived physically apart and so could not be working together. A commentator says he worked in some Indian communities and learned a lot, which in his mind counters my truth.
I say that in the post indentured colonial era this physical separation largely continued. I say the Africans despised and hated the Indians and the Indians returned such feelings towards people who were bullying and ridiculing them as inferior. Again, demonstrable historical fact. The idiot says Places like Rosignol, WCB or Alness Corentyne would contradict your hate theory.”
Even a most superficial scan of the internet throws up statements like this from
http://www.everyculture.com/Ge-It/Guyana.html
Ethnic Relations. After adopting British cultural idioms, the African and mixed middle class deprecated the “backward coolie” culture of Indians. The Indians, steeped in ancient notions of caste, brought rigid ideals of color and physical features to their judgment of African people, although most Indian immigrants were themselves dark. Africans and Indians thus constructed distinct Guyana
identities. A brief political compromise in the early 1950s could not moderate their mutual incomprehension. In the early 1960s, both groups violently contested the space being vacated by the British; this has left a legacy of racial hatred. Ethnic relations since independence in 1966 have been undermined by the notion that politics consists of the allocation of the spoils of power to the ruling ethnic section.
Obviously the commentator did no research or background checks at all and ignores the bibliography I set out for him. He continues to claim that I have invented a novel race hate theory that is oh so wrong, and asks what research I did and books I have read.
What do we do with such commentators? In my primary school days when a boys was particularly wicked or ignorant, the headmaster would bench him and pull out the broad leather belt for a good half dozen. Contrary to all physiological studies, beating on the rear end of the fool would often cause a better rearrangement of the grey matter on the head end. Pity we are not allowed to do that any more.
When I am employed and the prospects are good that I can look forward to a regular paycheck, the unemployment rate is whatever the Dept. of Labor says it is.
But when I was terminated yesterday and received my last paycheck for the foreseeable future, make no mistake about it; for me the unemployment rate is, suddenly, a full 100 percent!
That, in my opinion, expresses the difference between education and experience.
Up to now, I thought that I was quite clear on the difference between racial consciousness and racial conflict. I am beginning to be unsure.
In Albuoystown, for a significant segment of my development, we lived in a yard, tenanted by four of the six ethnic groups – no White, no Chinese. The ages ranged from infant to 90. Believe me, it does not get much closer than having to share the same standpipe, bathroom and toilet with total strangers. I saw consideration (tolerance?) as women stopped beating clothes while I filled a pot with water for cooking; where a neighbor would allow me to use the bathroom ahead of her because I would be late for school and she was a stay-at-home mother.
But it was in this same ‘ecosystem’ that an East Indian (Mohammedan) woman advised me that “we, East Indians, are different from ‘them'”. ‘Them’ was in reference to an Amerindian family and my friendship with their son of my own age. In the home I was warned against eating from ‘any and every body’; because they ate ‘beef & pork’; therefore ALL their wares (cup and plate) were contaminated.
It was here that two other families disapproved of the way my father lived – drinking and sporting with Black people. It might be significant that they were both East Indian families – and they lived in the “upstairs” apartments.
The primary school which I attended was ‘owned and operated’ by Carmelite Nuns. We sat where they decided. Looking back on it, the only instance of bias was in the “back bench” to where the less bright, potential bullies and similar were almost isolated. The descriptive terms are all mine; I have no way of knowing how or what the Carmelite Nuns thought.
Someone here took issue with Albuoystown being described as a paradise. Well let me tell you that many years later, I was working on a sugar estate and the Rio cinema had just been bombed. My father and I were discussing it and he looked me square in the face and said, soberly and seriously, “You must watch it. Working on the estate is bringing out racial feelings in you.”
Thinking about that, made me realize how easy it is to cross the border between ‘racial consciousness’ and ‘racial conflict’. Albuoystown was indeed a paradise – compared to some other places where I have lived.
Finally, “Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory”. Leonardo da Vinci
Ram you do not provide any valid evidence to support your argument. I have read some of the material listed. You are stretching this race hate idea.
Individuals within the African and Indian communities might express hatred for the other race but never enmass as you are claiming. I am an example of one who dwelled between the two races and could speak from on the spot experiences, not text book. In the 60’s there was arguably no other Indian community in Guyana like Port Mourant Estate. I knew it reasonably well. I knew the difference between a Cheddi Jagan and his family in Port Mourant and an E. V. Luckhoo in Georgetown. If there was this mass hatred I would have seen it.
The disturbances in the early 60’s, agitated by the politicians and outsiders had its effect. Not much to dispute there. In spite of that communities like Rosignol, where Africans and Indians lived in close proximity in arguably equal numbers, remained surprisingly peaceful.
I suspect your motive and you may misinform some but not those who know.
.
Demerwater: Wasn’t Rio cinema bombed because it was showing mainly Indian movies? Incidentally, in the late 80’s in Toronto, a group of Black Muslims from USA went to Toronto with detailed plans of a similar cinema in “Little India” with intention to bomb it full of Indian patrons, mainly from India. Fortunately, in crossing the border the plans were detected, and police then had them under surveillance. So, it seems Indians are personae non grata in more than one locale, not forgetting Idi Amin/Uganda case and other places.
Guitra Bahadur in her book Coolie Woman says of her experience as an immigrant in Jersey City, New York, (1987) that a racist group called themselves (“nom de guerre”) the “Dot Busters” – a name play on the recent Ghostbusters movie – were out to cleanse the multicultural neighbourhood of bindi and sari-wearing, curry-eating Indians. Their “manifesto” stated ‘we will go to any extreme to get Indians to move out’. They attacked an Indian doctor with baseball bats leaving him brain-damaged and a few days later killed another Indian in a nearby town, among their atrocities.
A well-known black Guyanese gentleman said (10 years ago) that one reason Indo-Guyanese in Barbados are disliked is because ‘they cook curry and smell-up the place’ (I was inadvertently copied on the email). Ironically, the most popular dish now in England is curry, (many restaurants have to close because they can’t find enough Indian chefs to meet demand – per BBC) and the popularity is getting like that in many North American places. And, every medical show now promotes Tumeric (Dye or Haldi) for its health benefits (along with other Indian spices). Two thousand years ago, the Roman Empire did brisk importation of Black Pepper from India, and resold it at over a price 1,000-fold. Only the elites (or wannabes) in Europe could afford it.
Just saw this, today. A non-Indian friend sent a similar one to me and I found this on the same page. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO2kYzc4HjY
Veda.
I mentioned the bombing of the Rio cinema, purely to highlight an inflexion point in my attitude towards the race problem; and the mature relationship between myself and my father.
As for the ‘theme’ of this conversation, let me say that I am proud of my ancestry – the people who can be easily credited with the ‘invention’ of the science of astronomy – among other things.
The factual and anecdotal narratives surrounding how I came to be born in British Guiana are interesting but unreliable. The “YouTube” presentation referenced in the preceding post is a good example of the-eye-of-the-beholder sort of thing – interesting but unreliable.
I would be better off reading “The Great Indian Dream” by Thomas Friedman in that it captures incisively the wholesomeness of my heritage and upbringing, in this statement,
“How did India, in 15 years, go from being a synonym for massive poverty to the brainy country that is going to take all our best jobs? Answer: good timing, hard work, talent and luck”.
It offers inspiration for a personal upward stretch; doesn’t it?
Correction: I noticed I wrote: personae non grata. Should be: personae non gratae.
Since ‘all anecdotal and eye-of-beholder’ accounts are unreliable’ therefore ALL history (including all Abrahamic prophet-based religions) are unreliable.
Veda
This Mr Albert casually dismisses with barely disguised contempt the recognized experts on race relations in Guyana, people like Dale Bisnauth, Bridget Brereton, K.O Lawrence, Basdeo Mangru and Clem Seecharan.
He says I do not provide any valid evidence to support my argument that there has never been any significant peace and harmony between the two major races, except that little decade of the PPP before Burnham broke away with the Africans.
He claims he has read some of the books from the bibliography I mentioned and doesn’t seem to think much of these experts.
Albert says he moved between the two races, and his personal experience is in some way better than the historians, better than text book. He personally did not see mass hatred between the races so therefore it did not exist.
Then comes his clincher. There may have been some agitation by politicians, but in Rossignol where Indians and Africans lived together in large numbers it was surprisingly peaceful! Therefore no inflamed race feelings in all of Guyana because of Rossignol! Hooray. Albert suspects my motive and feels I may misinform some people not those in the know, like him I presume.
What does one do with such ignorance and idiocy? I am talking about widespread patterns of thinking and behaviour involving hundreds of thousands of people, and he talks about Rossignol! I tel him respected historians have written extensively about racial hostility in colonial Guyana and he says they are just text books inferior to his personal experience!
I say hundreds of thousand of Guyanese, mostly Indians were forced into exile by Burnham’s black dictatorship. He says they were friendly in Rossignol.
I say there has been race war in Guyana, people killed and houses burned, incidents like the Wismar Massacre He says he knew Port Mourant well, and if there was mass hate he would have seen it.
I give him a bibliography of books dealing with racial conflict in Guyana and Albert dismisses them all, saying my race hate theory is a novel idea he has never heard of before!
I think perhaps Albert should drop his mask of anonymity and come out in the open with his real name and expertise in such complex matters like race relations. As I’ve said, I don’t like debating with shadows throwing rocks from the darkness. Unless he unmasks there would be no point in continuing this discussion with him.
“….therefore ALL history (………………………………) are unreliable.”
I can write “Q.E.D.” to that statement – so closely does it match my own thoughts. The words originally in parenthesis are a good example of “putting words in me mouth” – as my grandmother would say. A Faith-based idea is tacked on to a fact based idea. It is rather ungentlemanly, don’t you think?
I have made no secret of my dislike for “History”. As I read over these comments, I can see where an autobiographical narrative can be viewed as a “nostalgic creations of a mythical time”. In the course of my edification, we were required to write an account of a battle from the enemy’s point of view.
That was an enlightening exercise!
Sometime in “third standard”, I learned a poem about some blind men and an elephant. Every so often I am given reason to revisit it.
I have just now finished reading it.
All “faith based” religions are ‘history-centric’ as the well-published and respected Rajiv Malhotra would say. Without the “unreliable” history they vwould be nought, except for “faith”. In the social sciences, unlike math, ‘truth’ is a probability. It depends on the acceptance of the authors by their peers and the readers; and the evidence provided.
demerwater: you wrote: ” the-eye-of-the-beholder sort of thing – interesting but unreliable” along with “anecdotal”. I have simply shown the range of normally accepted ‘truths’ including faith-based ones that are indicted by your sweeping dismissal.
Secondly, except for math all sciences are also probabilistic, hence not exact Look at Quantum Mechanics causing the most notable Einstein to exclaim ‘God doesn’t play dice. Yet he is being proved wrong. It is also why, especially, in the health sciences we daily changes in prescriptions leaving health-wise consumer utterly confused.
Veda
Reread the commentaries. Hint: Hinds and Tata dislike the Indo and Afro prefixes ahead of Guyanese, which it is implied they use as their title. Secondly, they pour vitriol on Ms Jaikaran for avoiding “Black” identity, which they obviously subscribe to (which you have a huge problem with).
Do you have a problem also with “Black Panther” movie and the American movement with the said name?
I can’t keep assisting you to reason. This is my last exchange on this topic!
VNM.
This latter post belongs at:
VNM