Earlier today, I read comments on Demerara Waves’ Facebook against the shock expressed by Gino Persaud, Attorney-at-Law on his blog. The comments were made by his colleague lawyer, Ronald Burch-Smith, who is a signatory to the very statement that was signed by the group of 25 lawyers, and my colleague-in-journalism, Julia Johnson.
This is my reaction as posted on Demerara Waves Facebook:
While one may want to construe these latest events as shocking; the last thing that Guyanese should ever want is the further entrenchment of racially-motivated division over this matter to the detriment of the larger cause.
If we erroneously accept that race is the reason for shock; then the Indians among us must be condemnend squarely for saying nothing about the barbaric killing of the gold-jeweler’s employee by Guyanese Coast Guardsmen.
In fact, this should be a turning-point in seizing the moment of broadening and strengthening the front on this issue and cease harping back on what should or should not have been.
Guyana is undergoing a cycle of events much like the 1970s under the PNC. The outrage against the Burnham/PNC era did not start overnight but with a cumulative effect of the labour-related and political atrocities that had been committed against the Blacks in the bauxite industry and public sector and the East Indians in the sugar belt. Then came the House of Israel thuggery (Fr Bernard Darke’s killing), restriction of newsprint, food-bans and restrictions, beating up of anti-government activists by official officially-blessed state actors, etc. that had welded the outrage across race and class lines, notwithstanding the pre and post independence periods of racial tension aming Blacks and Indians.
In essence, the outrage against the Burnham PNC by sections of the society did not begin overnight. People at the then time had to be motivated and educated over a period of time. The Guyanese collective across all lines had to feel the pain themselves and for each other before it became manifest that the then rulers of the day could no longer be tolerated. UNFORTUNATELY THAT CYCLE CONTINUES AND SO IS THE STRUGGLE FOR PEOPLES’ POWER! One day, born out of post-colonial experiences will yield a model of governance that is truly indigenous to Guyanese.
The last thing that anyone wants in the current scheme of things is the fracturing of a potential unity-platform on the basis of “we and dem”. Forward ever to racial and working class unity among all classes and strata.
The recent position taken by the group of lawyers must be used as the rocket rather than the anchor rather than a weapon against forging the so necessary unity between proletariat and petty bourgeoisie.
It is only through such unity, rather than harping on what should have been done or has not been done on the basis of race, that the apparent paralysis that has inflicted the political opposition, civil society, private sector and the religious community will be healed, galvanised and mobilized.
