LAST Sunday, for the fourth consecutive year, President Granger delivered the keynote address at the Cuffy250’s annual State of the African-Guyanese Forum. Since 2013, when the organization was formed, Cuffy 250 has been bringing African-Guyanese together at this gathering to discuss the state of the community. This year’s gathering came against the backdrop of Guyana’s 50th independence anniversary, but as the president reminded the audience, it also comes within the second year of the United Nation’s Decade for Peoples of African Descent.
The president correctly observed that after 20 months, the African- Guyanese organizations have not done anything significant in relation to the Unite Nations declaration. He reminded those gathered that this declaration followed a previous declaration of 2011 as the international year for Peoples of African Descent. In making these declarations, the United Nations has concluded that peoples of African descent “represent a distinct group whose human rights must be promoted and protected.” The UN Secretary- General went on to say that “we must remember that peoples of African descent are among the most affected by racism. Too often, they face denial of basic rights such as access to quality health care and education.”
The UN obviously arrived at its conclusion on the basis of the experience of slavery and its continued effects on African-descended peoples. Many Black scholars and activists have long argued that slavery has had debilitating consequences for that community; that the worsening condition of the community across the world is largely the result of structural barriers arising out of slavery. On the other hand, others have contended that the effect of slavery is overplayed by Blacks and is often used as a mask for the community’s failure to lift itself to the level of other groups. It is tempting to buy in to the latter argument, partly because it is an easy conclusion that does not require its proponents to grapple with the linkages between slavery and the contemporary world. There is an understandable haste to quickly move on from slavery and to deny Africans the opportunity to make their case for reparative justice.
The ideology and practice of racism are derived from slavery and we now know that an institution could decline, but the socio-economic, political and cultural ideologies it spawned continue long after. This is what the United Nations has finally officially recognized and urged action against. We in Guyana have always been wishy-washy about anything that has to do with race, particularly at the level of officialdom and among the elites of all ethnic groups. We often hear as a rebuke to those who engage in the discourse about racism, constructions such as “we all belong to the human race.” Such a construction displays an utter lack of understanding of the meaning of the concept of race.
Human beings are not naturally races; race and racial classifications were created initially to justify chattel slavery and its attendant accumulation of wealth for the enslavers. Over time it became universally accepted by Europeans as an inherent principle of interpreting and explaining human behaviour. In other words, race is a socio-political and economic construct that has been biologized to give it natural meaning.
The president at the Cuffy250 Forum committed his government to honouring the UN initiative on peoples of African descent and challenged African-Guyanese to come up with what he calls “a plan of action.” This is a very bold but necessary move by a Head of Government and State in an acutely polarized country. Already, individuals and organizations of other groups have begun to question whether the President is going down the road of ethnic favouritism. Such questions have to be answered, but in the first place they need not even arise. But, in Guyana we repeat the same narrow narratives with the same results with scant consideration for historical truths.
In the end, our ethnically plural society will survive and prosper when all of its groups feel a sense of security and when equality and justice become operational in social relations and most importantly in the macro and micro-policies of our governments. The President should be congratulated for facing this issue head-on. He may well have planted the seeds of a new governance paradigm in Guyana, whereby governments ceases the frustrating practice of skirting around issues of ethnicity and race as far as policy is concerned.
His challenge to the African- Guyanese organizations to come up with a plan of action and his chiding of them for being missing in action over the last 20 months were examples of “tough love,” that hopefully resonated with them. In my own presentation at the Forum, I also called on African-Guyanese to begin to advocate for their own security and not sit down and wait for government to come to them, even if it’s a government for which they voted. This call would be elaborated on in my next column.

Dr. David Hinds, a political activist and commentator, is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Caribbean and African Diaspora Studies at Arizona State University. More of his writings and commentaries can be found on his YouTube Channel Hinds’ Sight: Dr. David Hinds’ Guyana-Caribbean Politics and on his website www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com. Send comments to dhinds6106@aol.com