THE need for a re-vitalised and re-structured Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) is paramount to deal with issues that are dividing our country into ethnic camps. The Ethnic Relations Commission comprises stakeholders across the societal strata, and it holds a wide-ranging mandate to address issues of national concern, especially regarding race relations. However, there had been a clamour for the disbanding of this body from persons who are concerned that the ERC has failed in satisfactorily executing its mandate, especially during the troubling events of the recent past. The ERC is a legally constituted body mandated to address matters that are divisive – either in actions or rhetoric; and also to create spaces for national conversations on the way forward on healing our ethnically fractured nation and bridging divides within communities. Practically everyone concedes that Guyana has inherited from the colonials a serious racial distrust and divide in the nation, primarily between Guyanese of East Indian descent and Guyanese of African descent. Maturity in nationhood should dictate that Guyanese transcend racial considerations and deal with each other primarily as members of one human family and as fellow Guyanese; but while relationships at individual level between members of different races in Guyana are strong, even where miscegenation has created a creolised amalgam of races that are truly Guyanese, especially during elections season the ugly reptilian features of racism raise their head, poised to strike its poison into the soul of Guyanese nationhood.

While the nation is becoming aware that our development can only retrogress if we continue to harbour malice toward our fellow Guyanese — especially on the basis of their ethnicity — the psychology of politics is so entrenched in the Guyanese being that it poisons the architecture of the nation’s identity and causes decay in the framework of nationhood. The incorporation of the Inter-Religious Organisation (IRO) into the body politic of the ERC was integral to the struggle to eliminate the prejudices – real or imagined — that exists within communities that are dividing our nation. Guyana is a deeply religious nation, albeit of several approaches to serving the Lord but, by and large, the primary message preached by every religion is one of love and acceptance of one’s fellow human within the fraternity of humankind. As such, the inclusion of the IRO in the ERC was integral to healing the soul of the nation through the various approaches to national cohesion by the latter body. A two-day Media Encounter facilitated by the Ethnic Relations Commission under then ERC Chairman Bishop Juan Edghill, in collaboration with the Guyana Press Association (GPA); the University of Guyana Centre for Communication Studies; the Guyana Media Proprietors and Owners Association; the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting (ACB) and the Government Information Agency (GINA), in 2011, concluded with expressions of a sense of satisfaction and the across-the-board conclusion that the event was useful, stimulating and beneficially functional. A joint release stated, inter alia: “… the robust involvement of students of communication and young members employed in the media augurs well for continued efforts to further improve journalistic standards in order for media to continue to effectively undertake its societal role and better serve the public… “The emphasis of the ERC on the use of education and moral persuasion as an approach to interactions between the ERC and the media was commended. Further, it was hoped that the ERC and its partners both developed a fuller understanding of the constitutional mandate of the ERC, as well as the complexity of the issues that confront media workers. “The media practitioners called upon the ERC to seek a declarative statement from the judicial branch in their quest for elucidation of aspects of the Racial Hostility Act. A major emphasis of the media Encounter was discussion of the Representation of the People (Amendment) Act and the Racial Hostility (Amendment) Act.” The atmosphere of cordiality was pervasive and the success of the media encounter was due to its broad-based involvement from many stakeholders. If Media Encounter 2011 was a microcosm of what can be expected and achieved in the wider society, especially during Guyana’s elections seasons, and indeed, in a wider sense as a norm rather than an exception, then there can be no reason for Guyanese to see each other as “them and us,” but as one nation working together for national peace, progress and prosperity.