The Social Construction of Race-Ethnic Conflict

• Author: Prem Misir
• Pages: 214-230

The Social Construction of Race–Ethnic Conflict in Guyana

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The Social Construction of Race–Ethnic

Conflict in Guyana

13 P R E M M I S I R

University of Guyana

Those who see only race/ethnicity in

politics in Guyana, as others who see

tribe and religion in other countries, are

not viewing reality comprehensively,

objectively and scientifically. They fail

to note that the two major ethnic groups

in Guyana are not, in class terms, uni-

class; that economics, on the one hand,

and politics, ideology, culture and

institutions, on the other, are inter-

related and inter-acting. Race/ethnicity

was not the determinant when the 7-

unions’ candidate, George Daniels,

with a minority of delegates won in a

secret vote against the PNC-backed

presidential candidate. At that time, the

struggle at the trade union level was

sufficiently advanced to cut across

racial lines. So now, the struggle will

advance to realize racial-ethnic unity

at the political level, as in the 1947–53

period.1

Cheddi Jagan

Is there nationwide race–ethnic conflict in

Guyana? Is Guyana a deeply divided society?

When is a society considered to be deeply

divided? Is ethnic conflict happening because

it’s in the blood? Is ethnic conflict behaviour

learned? Is race–ethnic conflict socially

constructed and reconstructed? Are ethnic

extremists perfecting the construction of race–

ethnic conflict? Is the explanation of race–

ethnic conflict not devoid of a class analysis?

Do we have a dominant ethnic group? Is there

ethnic insecurity and ethnic mistrust? Are some

politicians and the mass media not influencing

the formation of a false reality on ethnic conflict

among the masses? Does Guyana have

characteristics of race–ethnic conflict similar

to Bosnia, Rwanda, and ‘Apartheid’ South

Africa? Is the People’s Progressive Party/Civic

delivering goods and services to all

Guyanese? Is there evidence of social

marginalization? Only the Guyanese people

can genuinely answer these questions.

People in an intensely divided society

identify themselves by their ethnic group;

where people in those societies experience

inequality and discrimination based on

ethnicity, those societies have the capacity to

explode in hostility and violence. At the very

beginning, we need to say that there is a

difference between race conflict and ethnic

conflict. Race conflict addresses conflicts

pertaining to the physical characteristics of the

individual, such as skin colour. Ethnic conflict

speaks to conflicts relating to the person’s

culture, religion, mode of dress, food, beliefs,

values, et cetera. However, in many cases,

we may see both ethnic and race conflicts

occurring together, and so we can present

them as ‘race–ethnic’ conflict.

The over-zealous personality in its

belligerent quest for back-door entrance to

political power has produced an over-

politicization of this country through application

of the race-ethnic card. Numerous political

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commentaries claim that racism is rampant

in Guyana, and that the elected PPP/C

Government only represents Indian interests.

What has emerged since the last election say

the commentaries is a sharpened polarization

of the races — Africans and Indians. The

commentaries recommend power sharing as

a solution to this racial and ethnic divide.

Allegations of racism constitute the main

theme of these political commentaries. The

time is now well overdue for presentation of

evidence of discriminatory practices. These

discussions and emotional outpourings of

racism have mainly been projected by fringe

elements within the Indian and African groups.

However, Guyana has experienced periodic

ethnic violence solely at election times. If we

accept that the society is plagued with race-

ethnic conflict, the question then that pops up

is why is this violence not unleashed

throughout time and space? Societies

extensively racist exhibit sustained race-ethnic

violence between dominant and subordinate

groups.

Blood and Culture

This race-ethnic conflict tends to be

commonly explained by ‘blood’ and ‘culture.’

How authentic is the ‘blood’ explanation? Are

there other explanations?

The CornerHouse Briefing2 written by

Nicholas Hildyard pointed out that ‘Blood’ and

‘Culture’ have long persisted universally with

‘commonsense’ explanations for race–ethnic

conflict. He suggested that hatred between

Muslim and Serb or between Hutu and Tutsi

must be ‘in the blood’.3 The same allusion

can be made to alleged hatred between

Indians and Africans in Guyana.

But when we inspect below the surface of

ethnic conflict, the superficiality and falseness

of ‘blood’ or ‘culture’ explanations are soon

exposed.4 ‘Tribal hatred’ comes not from

‘nature’ or from a primordial ‘culture,’ but of

‘a complex web of politics, economics, history,

psychology and a struggle for identity’.5

Fergal Keane, a BBC Africa correspondent,

explains the genocide of one ethnic group by

another ethnic group in Rwanda in 1994, thus:

Like many of my colleagues, I drove

into believing the short stocky ones had

simply decided to turn on the tall thin

ones because that was the way it has

always been. Yet now, two years later,

I think the answer is very different. What

happened in Rwanda was the result of

cynical manipulation by powerful

political and military leaders. Faced

with the choice of sharing some of their

wealth and power with the Rwandan

Patriotic Front, they chose to vilify that

organization’s main support group, the

Tutsis . . . The Tutsis were characterized

as vermin. Inyenzi in kinyarwanda —

cockroaches who should be stamped on

without mercy.... In much the same way

as the Nazis exploited latent anti-

Semitism in Germany, so did the forces

of Hutu extremism identify and whip

into murderous frenzy the historical

sense of grievance against the Tutsis....

This was not about tribalism first and

foremost but about preserving the

concentration of wealth and power in

the hands of the elite.6

Keane insists that race–ethnic conflict is

socially constructed. In Guyana, too, race and

race–ethnic conflict are both socially and

politically constructed. The race–ethnic conflict

is not genetic or inborn and not even

inevitable.

False View of Reality

We define our own reality! Once defined,

we live within this reality. But this reality is

shaped and determined by the individual in

interaction with others, either face-to-face, or

through other forms of communication.

Remarks by some politicians, the private mass

media, hate literature, and significant others,

do influence the formation of people’s reality.