Scholar and Academic Dr. Kimani Nehusi, whose doctoral studies span Caribbean History, in an appearance on the Alliance For Change’s (AFC) “Alliance on the Move” program which airs tonight at 8 PM across social media, spoke to the issue of race relations historically and currently in Guyana.
Dr. Nehusi stated that past presidents Cheddie Jagan and Forbes Burnham, “Found it easy,” beginning with Dr. Jagan “to rely on race as a mobilizing factor for politics.” The Guyanese Academic said, “The decision to rely on race, especially after 1955 when Burnham was expelled from the party, suggests to me that the Jagans, Mrs. Jagan, Janet, was involved in this”.
He says as a political movement they were looking for an “easy way to get votes, and it’s something that faces all politicians and has faced all politicians in Guyana.”
Dr. Nehusi said that it is still happening today among Indian political leaders in Guyana. “We’ve got to be serious about our country and if you are telling me, or anybody’s telling me that it’s okay to rattle the racial thing and get into power and then you build up your racial… it doesn’t matter which race group it is, but we know that today it’s happening among Indian political leaders,” the distinguished academic noted.
He said, “You build up your community, you give them all kinds of resources, you impoverish the other community. What is going to happen down the line? What is going to happen down the line? Well, one of the things I said… we should have discovered or at least political leaders, that an Indian Guyanese government without African Guyanese participation is doomed to failure. And the opposite too, African Guyanese government without Indian participation is doomed to failure.”
