IN the interest of national unity, and the wellbeing of the citizens of Guyana, there is need for a comprehensive reform of Republic Day celebrations in Guyana.
As a nation, over the passage of time, we have signalled our intention to honour our diversity by granting the various major religions and ethnicities public holidays to celebrate their faiths,  cultures and heritage. In contemporary Guyanese society, several gaps have emerged.
Firstly, many groups – religious groups, cultural groups, ethnic groups, secular groups, community groups – are unrepresented nationally by these holidays and remain invisible. My conversation with a respected professional of Portuguese ancestry in Guyana revealed quite clearly that he did not buy the argument that the arrival of Portuguese to Guyana was also being celebrated on May 5th – Arrival Day. Where do we give space to the Baha’is of Guyana? Or the Yorubas? Or the Rastafarian community?
Secondly, by and large, most of the holidays that have been granted result in an aggregate of individual communities celebrating privately and separately.
Republic Day celebrations offer an opportunity to create the web that will link these separate communities and bind and unite us as a nation. There is much dispute around Mashramani and Republic Day and this signals the existence of a problem as well as an intention by the people to engage in discussions.
We are so very fortunate in this nation to have a tangible vision of the problems that besiege us. We have the Republic Day celebrations in Guyana on the 23rd February looming tall as the single most salient and tangible indicator of all that separates the people of this country; and hence it is the thing that needs to be resolved to take us across that critical point in our relationships into increased connectedness.
Interestingly, in the mathematics of connectivity, a tight web is created with suddenness when the conditions are right to trigger an instant transition from disconnectedness to connectedness. This point is called a state transition (pun intended, of course). If we fix this Mashramani/ Republic Day problem, we are home.
I know we are accustomed to thinking that our political problems are intractable. That’s because we are looking in the wrong place for a solution. I am reminded of the tale of the drunk man who was looking for his keys under the lamp post; a passer-by asked him why  he was doing that.
He replied that he is looking under the lamp post for his keys because this is where the light is. We are looking in the wrong place – desperately feeling that our happiness rests with the ‘other’ person making a change. It’s all too primal and elementary to be allowed to continue in the 21st century.
It is interesting to listen to the thoughts of a political commentator who suggests that the reason that PPP supporters (implying of course Guyanese of Indian ancestry) do not feel complete comfort with Mashramani celebrations is largely because the PPP told them to stay away.
This type of commentary reflects the wrong views and inaccurate assumptions that are prevalent in the brains of people of this country (not unlike myself a few years ago) and it is precisely these ideas that need to be expressed, uprooted and acknowledged to be wrong.
Is it not a shame that an accumulation of simple, wrong views like this are dividing us, leading to our unhappiness? (People are dying daily in this country; living unfulfilled lives.) We are not going to solve this problem by butting heads in Parliament. It is a very human problem and solving it requires that people on the street are able to admit to the possibility of harbouring a wrong view.
Another confusion around Mashramani is that it is a Guyanese holiday which emphasises ‘celebration after hard work.’ So what is it doing on Republic Day activities? Maybe as a young nation, ideas were limited. Now, with hindsight, we can do better than this. Interestingly, even Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival, the inspiration behind Mashramani, is separated from Trinidad and Tobago’s Republic Day celebration which happens on the 24th September.
It all gets worse than this. People in Guyana who are calling for the PPP and supporters of the PPP to get with the programme and join in Mashramani celebrations as a wonderful thing and as the dominant culture are demonstrating an ignorance and a spiritual deficit that repeats a cycle of hegemony that started with the same disrespect for freedom and for other cultures that people of this country experienced under colonial rule and in particular, British colonial rule.
Before we rush to condemn the colonial powers, and transfer the energy of hatred to another source, let us remember that history did not begin in 1492. Europe, like the rest of the world, has a long history of tribal warfare in which strife, warfare and dominance of others were common practice.
These horrible practices were merely transferred to the new world. Before we hasten to judge Europe, let us consider the various communities from which we all hail and whichever community was without strife, conquest and warfare may cast the first stone. This international continuity of abuse and this cycle of aggression and domination continue unabated and is still being propagated like waves across the globe; we cannot stand up to it by reflecting it in our own behaviour.
The current manner in which Republic Day (Feb 23rd) is celebrated by merging it with Mashramani celebrations offers little opportunity for inclusiveness of other cultures, traditions and sensitivities.
So, it is in its placement on Republic Day that the problem begins. The second problem arises from those who defend it demanding  assimilation which, as a concept, is mutually exclusive with acceptance, tolerance and respect – at complete odds with our fundamental values as enshrined in the laws of the land. So, on Republic Day, we are demonstrating ignorance, doing the very opposite of the aspirations of the paper documents supporting nationhood. Mashramani celebrations on February 23 as the main event for Republic Day leaves a severe deficit and indeed a huge gaping hollow in our national psyche and our contortions around this problem are compounding it.
So why are we doing this to ourselves? Wanting others to conform to our mannerisms? It is a serious psychological block. Do we really want others to conform to our culture? Or is it a perception that a criticism of Mashramani celebrations is a criticism of Caribbean culture? These are very simple questions, together with many more, that need to be raised and answered in the minds of people to clarify our perspectives.
Maybe, we all have it wrong and the defenders of Mashramani just want an opportunity to jump up and ‘celebrate after hard work’ and it feels so good to do it that they are lashing out against anyone who dares to speak out against this intrinsic need of theirs.
Considering the extent to which Mashramani celebrations are entrenched and enjoyed as part of national culture on Republic Day, as well as receiving widespread criticism, reform of this tradition will require nothing short of a widespread national consultation on the issues of national unity and the role of Republic Day in fostering this much sought after goal.
This is not an issue of ethnic relations, or for heavy government involvement beyond oversight. This is a call for intelligent interactions by the people of this country on what nationhood means to them and how to accommodate diversity and how various groups, subgroups and miniature groups, should they wish to be represented, can be accommodated and why. More importantly, it is a challenge to determine the extent to which people are willing to introspect, shed erroneous beliefs and accommodate others.
Our attempts to smooth over the gap in the links among us by applying the ‘Guyanese’ label, though noble and a clear indication of good intent, still rings hollow because our methodology is inadequate. What we are trying to find is an internal quality – a feeling of belonging and togetherness – and no external label can ever create that quality.
Internal qualities come from realisation – a byproduct of conscious thought, action and communication.
Besides, taken to any extreme, patriotism and nationalism can result in forgetfulness of our common humanity and produce inhumane behavior, the likes of which Guyanese have experienced at the hands of some Barbadians.
The people of Guyana have before them a golden opportunity to build a nation that will break the cycle of hate, disrespect, selfishness and greed in favour of our own brand of tolerance and acceptance, generosity and compassion, justice and fairness, peace, tranquility and harmony. We cannot break this cycle of ignorance if we do not see it. We are not a useless country that just happens to sit on the coast of South America speaking bad English and fighting internal squabbles. We have a role to play in the development of the continent and planet.