THE catalytic foundations for modern Guyana were formed out of a network of the world’s greatest, grotesque and most organised holocaustic atrocities known to man.
As a people, Africans overcame and are overcoming the residual pangs of racial injustices that are a carryover from the plantations.

With indentureship came a whole world of cultural differences and shades of division. Some were deep-seated, some superficial and others imagined. The collective yearning to break the shared post-slavery oppressions of colonialism threatened to set at naught the articulation of division.

Organising the movement against colonial oppression was done through trade unions and political activism. As the movement gained traction, to maintain the power structure, deliberate policies were enacted to deepen divisions.
Many of these orchestrated divisions, suspicions and imaginations are still very evident in our political interactions today. Every government that has ever served Guyana has been accused of some form of racial discrimination; some are not without merit. Similarly, with varying levels of success, every government pursued policies geared towards racial unity and reduction of discrimination.

To date, the most widely known government initiative to unify Guyana is President Ali’s One Guyana. As a ringing endorsement to its success, One Guyana is everywhere, from hinterland to coast, and on the lips of everyone, including children.

Nevertheless, the initiative has become a victim of its own popularity, so much so, that the opposition’s latest boogeyman is that the government is attempting to replace or substitute the National Motto. My take is that this is an artificial, shallow and nonsensical criticism directed at stirring up adverse political sentiments, and is probably not worth rebuttal.

That said, there are a few issues the government must substantially address quickly. The president appointed Prime Minister, Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips as leader of the One Guyana Commission with the promise of a legal framework to give effect to the commission. Then there is the long-awaited concept paper.

The president has placed himself behind the eighth ball with the length of time it’s taking to bring these two major aspects of his initiative to reality. In my opinion, the government should have long released a skeletal narration of its defining concept paper and let us build it together. Let our collective experiences continue to define and refine it, with successive versions released every quarter or so.

When the concept paper is released after such a long time, the document will have to be near perfect, with no glaring omissions, or the government will attract unwanted odium. This is putting itself under undue and unnecessary pressure which has the potential to distract from the many other items on the political agenda.
The initiative will come across as somewhat ad hoc and mythical. I would urge President Ali to release whatever he has and stylize it as version one.

Let those of us who are interested in advancing the concept, help to refine it. It could be later upgraded to version two and three etc… There is no furthered utility value in waiting for perfection.
As it stands, there are three main types of responses. The first are optimists who believe that any initiative is better than no initiative, and will participate as long as it is designed to bring our people together.

They will not wait for all the formalities to be in place. The second are the skeptical optimists, they want to see the formal structure and evaluate the players, and will come on board depending on how ‘things’ progress. Then there are the perpetual pessimists, no matter what the government does they are opposed to it and will find everything under the sun objectionable.

Despite the popularity of the One-Guyana initiative, the government is facing arguably its most raving and sustained attacks and accusation of racial discrimination it has ever faced. The main reason is that, we have an opposition that lacks creativity and imagination. So, they beat the race drum knowing that, because of our historical political interactions, they will find fertile sod.

They do so daily through provocateurs, some of whom have contacts with high US legislative officials and cordial friendships with political activists and organisers. This is probably why Guyana is an attractive destination for “fact” finding tourism.
Anyone who gives even a cursory glance to race relations in Guyana will know that racial sentiments have deep connections to partisan politics. As such, the assumption of fairness means any semblance of party fraternisation should be avoided.

A group of tourists led by Dee Dawkins-Haigler utilised rabid opposition channels to organise their itinerary. They were escorted to tour the outer regions by opposition political tour guides and engage in conversations based on their monotonic activism, thereby saturating themselves with the high stench of bias. Given the circumstances, the government will be acting against its own political interest if it engages with this group of tourists.

That said, at the end of the day, it is the people who must define the success of the One Guyana initiative. To this end the tone-deaf opposition refuses to acknowledge the signals already issued within their strongholds. People are fed-up of their political choice being defined by their ethnic nomenclature.