BEFORE the 1950s, talk of racism and race in an adversarial way was unknown in Guyanese society.  Though there were six racial groups, each being proportionally a greater part of the total population than at present, they all respected and had close friendships and familial relations with each other.  They enjoyed and celebrated the diversity of their society; whenever they met in a foreign country, they became even closer and familial.  There was a robust British-Guianese patriotism.

In the 1950s, European imperial countries, exhausted and impoverished by World War II, could not retain their overseas Empires and decided to withdraw from them.  In the 1950s, Britain decided to withdraw from its Caribbean territories and to hand over power to politicians of each territory.  It did so by gradual constitutional changes, which allowed for the local politicians to acquire experience in government, form political parties, and compete with each other for election to the local Assemblies or Parliaments.  In Guyana, instead of seeking election by seriously offering to the electorate competing for social and economic programs, the local politicians found it easier to mobilise political support by appeals to racial affinities.

But once introduced into Guyanese politics, race never departed and even spread its tentacles to other aspects of Guyanese life.  By the end of the 1950s, the Cold War was raging between the West, led by the USA, which championed capitalism, and the USSR which promoted communism.  Britain was intent on granting Guyana its Independence but the most prominent politician in the country was a communist and he very likely would have become Prime Minister of the newly independent state.

This had to be forestalled.  The clash in the Guyana theatre between communism and capitalism was led by the US Intelligence Agency, which assessed that the most effective way to neutralise communism in Guyana was to stimulate racism as a divisive force in the population and this would result in the communist leader being denied the Prime Ministership which would then go to his opponents.  This policy coincides with the aspirations of local politicians who had already been mobilising support based on race.  The Western Cold Warriors synchronised these policies and this strategy was successful and the communist leader was kept out of office.

By the end of the the 1980s, the West had won the Cold War and the need to promote or condone racist Cold War policies were abandoned and Democracy was now promoted, not only in Guyana but worldwide. Racism in Guyana had lost a major prop but still remained a vote-mobilising policy among local politicians.

Over the last 60 to 70 years, Western social assumptions had changed and racism is now generally eschewed and populations are now more concerned with Democracy and social and economic betterment.  The proponents of racism still exist in small pockets and they tend to enjoy disproportionate media influence and coverage which project them as having more influence and power than they actually have.  Being part of the West, Guyana fully manifests the trend of eschewing racism and having surviving pockets of racism. These pockets exist not only locally but also in the Guyanese Diaspora.

As a manifestation of this fading Racism, President Dr. Irfaan Ali, in his recent engagement with some leaders of the Christian community remarked “What there is, is a great yearning of the population to come together.  There is a great opportunity for us to fuse ourselves together; that is what ordinary people want.

However, a select few out there drive narratives far different from reality”.  These few, Dr. Ali pointed out, peddle the narrative of hatred, discrimination, and racism, and to counter it and eliminate it, he pledged himself to continue working, as he has always been doing, to dismantle every single chord, every iota of discrimination against any Guyanese which may still exist.

Guyanese go to the same schools, are members of the same clubs and associations, work in the same places, frequent the same places of entertainment, meet each other every day, and do numerous acts of kindness to each other.  The time is fast disappearing and every disagreement or annoyance with each other is given a racial spin.  Racial stereotyping is beginning to be analysed and understood.  The time when politicians could mobilise any significant support by calls to race is rapidly passing away and the majority of the electorate is concerned with social and economic betterment.

President Dr. Ali is in the mainstream of modern social, economic and political thinking and understands that Guyanese society is so integrated and intertwined that if any section of it suffers any harm, all sections and the society as a whole will suffer.  Success as a President depends upon his leavening society as a whole.

Most politicians and political leaders in Guyana have grasped the modern trends into which Guyana is moving and know they can no longer mobilise any significant support by emotive calls to race.  There are however, a number of pockets, both at home and in the Guyanese Diaspora, who are anachronistically trying to mobilise support by calls to race, and when they have realised that they had been barking up the wrong tree, they pathetically dream that other countries will intervene to install them in place of their political adversaries.

We are confident that these pockets will in time, return to the mainstream and with dedicated work and alliance with others, will enter the corridors of office and power and enthusiastically join the revolution of transforming Guyana into a country with all First World standards.