THE message that will most certainly resound in Churches across Guyana over the Good Friday-Easter Monday weekend will be the sacred bond between heaven and earth, forgiveness, love and the brotherhood of humanity.

There was a time when every conceivable ill in the world was laid at the feet of religion, but that narrative has since been dismantled by a wealth of empirical evidence. These amazing themes are embedded in almost all religions, and the world needs more of them, not less.

In the past year, I’ve come to see that these are not merely abstract theological concepts, but values embodied in real lives. I work closely with Guyanese of African descent who are committed Christians and who exemplify some of the highest ethical ideals. There is a quiet nobility in their character–something I, as a member of a different faith tradition, find deeply admirable.

We focus on what brings us together- our shared identity as one people, in one nation, working toward a common destiny. That spirit shapes our work environment. It’s open, dynamic and full of life. When disagreements arise–and they do–we talk them through. More often than not, the person with the strongest evidence and clearest reasoning, whatever the subject, wins the day, as it should be.

When it comes to matters of ethnicity and race, even the highly educated in the ranks of APNU+AFC seem all too willing to throw empirical evidence to the wind. That’s exactly what Vincent Alexander did last week when he tried to disparage the Government of Guyana during an address at the 4th meeting of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD4) at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Alexander, the Chairman of the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly–Guyana (IDPADA-G), accused the PPP/C administration of engaging in the systemic exclusion of Afro-Guyanese and failing to repair the enduring legacies of enslaved Africans in Guyana. Alexander has made some fairly outrageous and false statements in the past, and he has been called out repeatedly for them. Despite his formidable academic credentials, facts don’t seem to matter in the worldview of Alexander, and that’s unfortunate.

Any response to Alexander’s outlandish assertions must underscore the profound contempt he has displayed for the very people he purports to represent. Under his stewardship, IDPADA-G has mismanaged millions of dollars in public funds, allocating exorbitant sums to salaries and rent, while steadily devolving into a partisan arm of the PNC.

Despite his sweeping accusations, Alexander has not produced a single instance of a senior PPP/C official disparaging Afro-Guyanese. On the contrary, it is his own close associates who have publicly engaged in racially charged rhetoric. Amanza Walton-Desir, a political ally, once described Indo-Guyanese as “mentally lazy.”

More recently, Terrence Campbell, another friend, wrote that VP Bharrat Jadgeo is “genetically predisposed” to dishonesty – a statement that goes beyond personal insult to malign an entire ethnic group.

If Afro-Guyanese have been subjected to the lower rung of the social and economic ladder, how is it that they dominate the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), Police Force (GPF), public service, nursing, and state media (NCN, Guyana Chronicle and DPI)? Over 33 per cent of ministers in government are Afro-Guyanese. The ethnic representations among doctors, teachers, judges and magistrates reflect national demographics.

The APNU+AFC frequently cite the Mocha-Arcadia case as supposed evidence of government-led dispossession of ancestral lands belonging to Afro-Guyanese. But Alexander conveniently omits key facts. Residents had been warned as far back as 2008 not to build on that land, which lay directly in the path of a long-planned highway. When the PPP/C returned to office in 2020, the government offered to relocate them to the transported land nearby, along with compensation well above market value.

Most residents accepted the offer–only seven refused, encouraged by Alexander’s political allies to hold out. When the Chief Justice ruled against their claims, it was President Irfaan Ali–not the Opposition–who stepped in to offer them additional support.

Alexandar fails to mention the example of Ann’s Grove, a village on the East Coast of Demerara that I know well because next door, Clonbrook is my mother’s ancestral village. Last year, the PNC’s mouthpiece – Village Voice — described Ann’s Grove as “the village on which a nation was built.” The PPP/C government, not the PNC that is now regularising land titles in Ann’s Grove and by year’s end, 440 Afro-Guyanese families will receive legal title for their lands.

Since assuming office, the PPP/C administration has distributed over 44,000 house lots across the country — a testament to its commitment to expanding opportunity for all Guyanese. While Guyana does not engage in race-based data collection, and I cannot cite a precise figure, anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that Afro-Guyanese beneficiaries comprise more than half of that total — a silent but powerful rebuttal to Alexander’s claims of ethnic exclusion.

During the APNU+AFC administration from 2015-2020, land distribution was anything but equitable– the only beneficiaries were ministers and senior officials, including individuals like Nigel Hughes, whose wife, Cathy Hughes, served as a sitting government minister.

In the distribution of the recent cash grant, were Afro-Guyanese exempted? How about the creation of 60,000 new jobs and the thousands of scholarships? Alexander can’t tell one side of the story to further his distorted narrative and ignore the documented reality of what is happening in Guyana under the PPP/C Administration.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.