I think that you under estimate the degree to which many poor Africans are alienated from Guyana.  They don't see any benefit in voting so will not.  What is now happening is that levels of disaffection and alienation among grass roots Indians is now rising to the level that it has long been among grass roots blacks.

No one in Guyana thinks that the AFC is going to win, which is why Gerhard left.  Those who are politically motivated will support them out of protest.  Many more are just going to be more convinced than ever that voting is a waste of their time.

 As most of the older die hard PNCites die off the replacement generation will be less inclined to vote.  This being why the PNC maintains its position even as the PPP slips.  Reality is that voter turn out has massively declined in Guyana, and all one needs to do is to compare 2001 results with those a scant 10 years later.

The only changing dynamic will be the extent to which disaffected PPP supporters bother to vote, as if they do vote the AFC will benefit.  Many however feel that the AFC cannot win, and they will not support APNU, so voting is a waste of their time.

Folks who are filled with moral outrage fail to understand that most people just want to get through each day, no longer think that politics is relevant to their lives, so increasing numbers cease to vote.  A scenario like this favors the incumbent who has the power to buy votes.  You know that the PPP has already begun its vote buying spree.

will this make any sense keep running to the poll,the country will be more divided.guyana cannot afford this we already 20 yrs backward crime is out of control,the time is now if we want to live in the 21 century the opposition have to look at this collation in a business 

You may be right. However, that wouldn't explain the big public courtship ritual. If they don't do a marriage, I don't see how public dating helps the AFC cause.

It just generates articles and news stories of AFC-PNC bedding without any real benefit having been achieved (especially to the AFC in the eyes of it's simple Indo base)

You my dear sir are an ideologue filled with moral outrage.  No one enters politics because they want to "help".  They do so because they crave power.  Granger is clearly as power drunk as any and one can see how he treats Linden as proof of this.

Granger is NOT going to sign a death warrant to allow Nagamootoo to gut APNU.

At best we can hope that Nagamootoo is smart enough to understand that while having him being selected as the presidential candidate can be a game changer (Kari gave good reasons why such thinking might be flawed) he will have to concede that it is APNU, and NOT the AFC which will do most of the heavy lifting to get its support base out, and that it is APNU who will gain most of the votes in this alliance, and therefore he will have to give APNU the comfort that he will not use the "list system" as outlined by Shaitaan, to weaken APNU, by mounting a "coup" against them.

I invite you to name ANY country where politicians put nation above self.  Humans are not built that way.

Maybe it is the thanks for the release of the tension created on the potential of a merger....plus breaking the PPP's heart that they did not tie the knot.

I once dated a girl like that. Such teases

That sentence alone show how utopian you are.  Only about 55% of the people in the US vote in presidential elections.  NYC has a mayor based on only about 20% voter turn out.

Most people live life day to day and are focused on what is important to them.  What you talk about flies above their heads.  They think that politicians are thieves, and increasingly see them as irrelevant.

Guyanese are fast reaching that way of thinking, with our voter turn out tumbling from almost 90% in 2001 to just under 70% a scant 10 years later.

One legacy that Hoyte left is the notion that people in Guyana can manage DESPITE the gov't in power, as the economy is much more liberalized than it was in the Burnham era.   This being ESPECIALLY true for Indians who have a more defined network due to the economic dominance of Indians in Guyana.

And there you go.  Because I am culturally creole, I have a more open ended notion about how culture evolves and am less insecure about douglarization leading to my cultural annihilation.  Indeed its easy to prove that Trinidad and Guyana are much more culturally dynamic than are monolithic places like Barbados. 

I also enjoy the cultural fluidity that ALL Guyanese engage in (even if Indians wish to deny this).  You can describe this as "creolization", but I will describe it as "douglarization".

Under Burnham Hindu and Muslim holidays became NATIONAL holidays....not some "coolie" holiday that they were before.  All Guyanese were expected to become as knowledgeable of what these holidays stood for as they were of Christmas, Easter, and Good Friday.  Don't see what is wrong with that.  That is "douglarization".

  Indeed the fact that maybe as much as  35% of those who have visible  African descent self identify as mixed doesn't drive Africans into a sense of panic.  Having an Indian dominated nation which reduces their ability to find employment above menial level jobs does.

So you clearly illustrated the different nature of Indian and African racism.

You will have to admit that the PNC has a situation which no other party, including the PNM has.  The African +mixed equation in Trinidad has ALWAYS been the majority.  This maybe being why there is a little less ethnic paranoia. 

The mixed vote isn't tied to the African vote out of fear of Indian domination (your fear of douglarization) in Trinidad to the extent that it is in Guyana.  Nor is the African or Indian population locked in this tribal struggle to the same degree, because they know that they cannot attempt to use tribalism to fully lock ethnic groups out, as happens in Guyana.

So there is a portion of the population who are fluid in their support, so neither then PNM nor UNC can take the electorate for granted.

It is only now in Guyana, that the African + mixed vote is EQUAL to the Indian vote (don't let the ethnic composition of the total population fool you as many of those mixed people are too young to vote).  This is why the PPP for the first time is a minority gov't.

The PNC labors in an environment where they cannot get more than 50% of the votes, no matter what they do.  No other West Indian party faces this problem. The interesting fact is that the PPP also faces the same dilemma, only issue is that it starts out ahead so has fewer non ethnic votes that it needs to buy, and is using Amerindians for this purpose.

I do not care to get into another argument with you on linguistic but will reiterate what I said to you awhile back; no one bestows on another a language. It is their natural instinct to create a language from what is available in the society if they are from different language group. All creole follow the same principle. None is black, Chinese or Indian. They are unique creations to which each group contribute and even recreate. Even English is a northern lowland germandic dialect.

Indeed you argue with me and not Shaitaan.  I see nothing wrong with cultural mixing because that is what will happen in any multi ethnic society, Guyana being no exception.

The ones who you ought to fight against are people like Shaitaan who are fighting a losing battle for cultural "purity".  Many NYers who live in Queens can easily tell a Guyanese Indian from an Asian Indian, even though they have the same phenotypical appearance.  Its the fact that living next to people who are culturally creole has made their mark.

As soon as a Guyanese Indian opens his mouth, most speak with accents and grammatical structures based on a dialects that were developed by Caribbean blacks.  Related very closely to similar English dialects which developed in parts of West Africa.

So douglarization is happening, whether people want to believe it or not, and a visit to many a nightclub in RH will confirm that fact. Folks need to stop fighting a losing battle. 

Indeed an Asian Indian, viewing Indo Guyanese girls dancing to Indian Bollywood music, exclaimed that they dance to Indian music they way that he imagined an African woman would, and he immediately asked whether they dance more often to soca and reggae. Sorry Shaitaan, you know the answer to that!

1. I am culturally creole. I always find myself more comfortable in the company of West Indian blacks than I do with India coolies as West Indians are my people in every sense of the term. I also belong to a subgroup. I'm sure you belong to lots of social subgroups. It's your inalienable right as it is mine. It is not a mark of insecurity. Are Jews or any other minority displaying "insecurity" when they try to preserve themselves? Indos are a minority in the Caribbean. We have to be especially careful to ensure we don't disappear. That's not insecurity. That's just common sense.

2. There is nothing wrong with our "coolie" holidays. We never needed the State to sanctify our observances. And FYI, the royal governors even in the 19th century issued proclamations for our holidays and it was common for blacks to participate. Burnham did not invent this custom. He simply capitalized on it so he could claim to the world especially NAM and it's India baboons that he wasn't anti-Indian. He added it to the legal code. This wasn't some stroke of negro genius. Indians did just fine without "national" coolie holidays. We have a habit of surviving without and many times inspite of the state. I don't care if non-Indians care about "coolie" culture. The opinions of other groups is irrelevant. We don't need validation because someone gave the civil servants a day off on the occasion of a "coolie" holiday.

3. If the preservation of Indians and Indian culture is racist then so are the Jews and every other minority every where else in the world. Including minority tribes in every single part of Africa. Your definition of racism seems to be very opportunistic and designed to suit. I'm not sure that's how a theory is supposed to work.

I'm always amazed at how humans have a penchant for creating caricatures in their heads and running with it.

I am not fighting for any "purity." I fancy myself intelligent enough to understand how culture works and I embrace it. I don't believe in "fighting" culture wars of any kind. I'm simply saying (if you listen carefully) that we should preserve the elements of our tradition and our people as best we can. That's it. No anti-douglarization policy. No pro-douglarization policy.

Lastly, spare me this nonsense of having to even pretend to care what India coolies think of us. I couldn't care any less. I suspect only the most hardened orthodox Hindus truly care. Their opinion of us makes me neither "sorry" nor "happy." (maybe yugi) I seriously am disappointed that you felt the need to express regret that some India coolies may question my "bona fides" as a "pure" Indian. As though that will bother me in my imagined quest for Indo-Aryan-Dravidian "purity."

So if you are culturally creole, why does the concept of douglarization already scare you?  You are already a mix of a Guyanese version of Indo, Creole, and British colonial culture, the interactions which pretty much shape what being Guyanese is.

Has that erased your identity as an Indian?

I will argue that the fact that contemporary Afro Guyanese now have more respect for Indian culture will in fact guarantee its survival, albeit in a highly transformed Guyanese form.  It is no longer stigmatized as a "coolie" culture, fit only for country peasants, the way it was in the 1970s, when many Indians who sought "urban cool" fled from it.  One can no longer have a "Guyanese" event and sing "Here Auntie Bess" and think that this represents the totality of what being Guyanese is all about.  In fact it is only recently that non Indian Guyanese realized that Guyana had as rich a reservoir of INDO GUYANESE (not Indian) folk songs as it does have creole/African folks songs.

I will suspect that an Afro Guyanese of 2015 will be much less interested in "eradicating" Indo Guyanese culture has would his great grandparents of 1950 would have been, when they would have seen it as pagan, and backward.  Its is because the urban African now has more contact with the Indian than in the 50s when G/town was basically an African town with a mixed/Portuguese sub elites, in a society dominated by the British.

Your survival doesn't rest in huddling in a group terrified of, contemptuous towards and intent in excluding yourselves from interactions with others.

It is NOT a coincidence that the increasing % of Guyana's population which is now mixed, comes at a time when Afro Guyanese have developed more respect for Indo Guyanese culture, and more aware that, to quote an Afro Guyanese woman "if its just black people alone that it doesn't represent what Guyana is fully".  There is no way that this woman's grand parents would have felt the same way when Indians remained huddled in a group, hostile towards any interaction with others for fear that it would mean their annihilation.

Now can you tell me where in all of this is there any suggestion that Indian culture be annihilated.

Its is your own insecurities that suggest that Indo Caribbean culture is too weak to survive even as the barriers which separate Indo and Afro Caribbean people tumble.  It will survive, but it will also become transformed, as no culture remains static.

One legacy that Hoyte left is the notion that people in Guyana can manage DESPITE the gov't in power.............so true about people getting on with their lives despite the politics in Guyana, and that's what I as saying earlier

I said the sentence was an ideal..

don't care to argue the rest since I have been there and done that with you already.

You want black people to respect your culture and identity, yet you seem happy to have it locked in some back water.

Show me  when in colonial British Guiana were Hindu or Muslim holidays given the same respect that even Boxing Day was.  Want to annihilate a culture!  Just lock in a box separate from society as a whole.

Again another illustration of the difference between Africans, who view themselves as Guyanese who happen to be of (part) African descent, and Indians who see themselves as Indians born in Guyana.

Only utopians dream of an ideal world, with the rest of us merely want to survive, and if possible, even thrive within it.  People's political behavior is based on that fact.

As Kari said, for those people who think that their lives are better, they might look passed the corruption of the PPP. Will they verbally deplore it?  Maybe.  Does that mean that they feel compelled to vote against the PPP?  Depends.

This is why I pose a comment. APNU is going to win, because that is the only way that the PPP will lose.  I wonder how many people like you don't feel a twinge when it is put that way.

Do you actively want an APNU victory?

Tell dat to ASCRIA Idiot!!!

And this is what I am trying to get Stormborn to understand.  It is not inevitable that every one cares about PPP corruption.  It is also not inevitable that those who do will vote against the PPP, or even vote.

This is why I am not going to say that the PPP will lose, even though ethnic dynamics suggest that a majority government is unlikely, unless APNU collapses, and the AFC is ineffective.

to the contrary. Utopians see the ideal as the real and pretend they will get there. Democrats have precepts as guides and aim for that direction knowing it will be messy but it is the best humanly possible outcome for government given what we know.

I want the PPP out. APNU will definitely go down the PPP route to despotism if there is no active, involved, self conscious motivated leader who has democracy as his goal takes over. I am willing to bet on anyone else than the PPP given their persistence in office means more of the same kleptocracy we currently have.

And he says ASCRIA as if it is an insult.  If you don't like Burnham you ought to love ASCRIA as it is this organization which set the conditions for the WPA to evolve!

I don't think you get it. You come off as though Indos need you and your group's approval of some kind for our continued existence. We don't need it. Nor do we seek it. Feel free to disabuse yourself of the notion that Guyanese Indian culture and it's future is a matter of public debate and approbation. It isn't.

Do you ever see Indos presumptuous enough to make great pronouncements on how Afro-Guyanese culture should or should not evolve? Not our business. Not our concern.

Indos (the ones I'm around anyway) never care for approbation from blacks or others before nor do we care for it now. It's great that some blacks no longer think we're all hell bound idol worshippers with no real proper culture. Good for them. We don't care. I'm happy that they have ascended a little higher on the rank of civilization to have this realization.

Did you notice how the Indos managed to hold onto their "coolie" culture even when being looked down upon by the British for over a century? A people who we actually believed were our superiors. Do you really think we'd care much now what other non-superior races think?

Personally, I think you engage in strawman arguments a little too much here as well. No one is "huddling" in fear of negro hordes. Indians have always since the 19th century taken pro-active measures to preserve their culture and traditions even as they adapt to changing times. That will continue. Today, you can still find a Hindu or a Muslim in Guyana.

Tell me, what native African religions do you practice? What is your tribe's mother tongue? What village in Africa are you from? What African name were you bequeathed by your ancestors?

IN fact some Asian Indians find Indo Caribbean culture quite exciting and exotic with its incorporation of Afro Caribbean elements.

Do you think that the Indian who noted that Indo Guyanese girls were dancing to Bollywood the way that he imagined African women would dance it meant to be insulting? Why would he mention that to me, some one who is of visible African ancestry if he meant that as an insult.  Indeed he also went on to express pleasant surprise that Africans were also responsive towards the tassa drumming, as it wasn't within his cultural reference that any one, except for some ageing white hippies, would be.

Explore your own insecurities to ask yourself why you think that an Indo Guyanese cannot retain his own identity if he interacts with, and incorporates the cultures of the other groups who he has to interact with.

Even as we speak many Indo Guyanese kids aren't only adding to their Indo Guyanese culture elements of an Afro Caribbean one, but are also adding that other "creolized"  NYC "urban culture, itself a hybrid of the various ethnic groups which inhabit NYC.  Does that make them less Indo Guyanese?  Only a deeply insecure person would think so, and they will be very sad, because cultures evolve as people have to adjust to differing environments and interactions.

You see a black person from an island like Antigua can learn to appreciate tassa drumming, merely because they like drumming PERIOD, and as such can expand their repertoire to include a different drumming pattern.

Indeed this is how soca and chutney soca emerged, when different musicians experimented with the different textures that Afro and Indo Caribbean drumming brings.  Yet soca remains of the Afro Trini experience, even as chutney soca remains rooted in an Indo Trini experience.

You really should come out of your cave and learn that not every one wishes your cultural extinction, and indeed even view Indo Caribbean cultural contributions as enriching.  Look at how pervasive the use of curries have become in Caribbean CREOLE cooking?

Given that my African ancestry encompasses every thing from Senegal through to South East Nigeria (DNA tested) which one do you suggest that I chose.

Also how many Guyanese Indians are ready to go back to some Bhojpuri speaking village in Uttar Pradesh (and assign themselves to the lowest order in a very caste ridden society).

This response is exactly what I expect from a man lost in a cave, who is too terrified to come out because he thinks that the world is out to get him.

I am very proud of the culturally diversity of what being Guyanese, especially the way that Guyanese exist in a cultural continuum, and "borrow" cultures of other ethnic groups........like the fact that Indo Guyanese speak CREOLESE, which was developed by Afro Caribbean people, and that Afro Guyanese (whether they know it or not) use words frequently which have roots in Hindi/Bhojpuri.....how odd would the use of the word split peas, instead of channa be to most Guyanese.

Poor thing.  You admit that you are culturally creolized, yet seem keen to seek some culturally purity rooted in India.

This exchange shows exactly the roots of the racisms of Indians and Africans in Guyana.  You seem so caught up with the notion that if you aren't ethnically exclusive you will be annihilated. My concern is confined to whether Africans have equal political, social and economic rights.  The fact that I am a Christian, doesn't in my eyes diminish me as a proud Afro Guyanese.  What is diminishing is if I was denied equal access to opportunity.

You seem however caught up with the notion that Afro Caribbean people are driven by a desire to eradicate you.  Those who desire this are ignorant and live in the past.  Many these days view Indo Caribbean culture as enhancing what is already the rich cultural brew which is the Caribbean.

I do not define myself in terms of Africa, and why should I when my last African ancestor left there 200 years ago.  What defines me is the culture that MY FAMILY developed since then.

Obviously the culture that your family developed over the past 150 years, as they adjusted to life in the Caribbean, and willingly or not, became a people OF the CARIBBEAN and not India, embarrasses you.

1. I don't care if black people respect my culture and/or identity. Black people could viciously hate all things Indian for all I care. Most Indians still went about being Indian when it wasn't popular to be Indian in Guyana. I don't derive any pleasure from anyone liking me or respecting me for belonging to a racial or ethnic group. I'd hope people like or respect me for me.

2. You're starting to pick up the worse GNI traits. I never once argued the British "respected" us or loved us or whatever. That is not the point. I'm sure they didn't. They "respected" Indians about as much as they respected Blacks...not much. I made the point that the British did provide for Indians to celebrate their holidays. And even when they didn't, guess what? We did so anyways. We don't need the State to make Youman Nabi a thing. It is regardless of the State's position.

3. I think you seem to forget that you're not speaking to some small minority population. We have been the majority of Guyana for probably over a century now. I think our culture is far from being in a box. It's there. Out in the open. We celebrate it everyday. See the masjids and mandirs? They exist.

4. You fall prey to some of the oldest canards about Guyanese Indians. No Guyanese Indian thinks he's an Indian born in Guyana. We are Guyanese buy nationality and ethnically belong to a subgroup of people called "Indians." I'm sorry for you that the word "Indian" is multipurpose. It describes people who are citizens of India. People who are racially Indian. People who are ethnically Indian. It's just a multipurpose word.

And FYI, Guyana is not a melting pot nation. Indian indentured servants who were British Subjects simply moved from one part of the Empire to another. And we became the majority. We never gained or lost nationality. Therefore, the new Guyanese State must bend to us as a constituent majority of the Guyanese People as it is a construct that is a consequence of the Guyanese People's formation not a cause of it's existence.

No wonder you will have severe angst this Friday night if you go to a nightclub in RH and see those Indian girls wining to soca and dancehall.  Some with black or Latino boys.

Guyana is a melting pot nation, where different cultures interact and enrich each other, and people are free (or ought to feel free) to utilize any element within this cultural mix.

Guyanese of different ethnicities DO NOT exist in isolation from each other, and any attempt by segments to attempt to enforce this will lead to a backlash from others.

But you see I am proud to be Guyanese" You just see Guyana as where you were born and a place of which you are a citizen, and can live in ethnic isolation. According to you, Indians are a people who moved from one British colony, to another, apparently not becoming rooted over time in the society to which they ancestors migrated to over 100 years ago.

So who should Indo Guyanese cheer for?  The West Indies, or Bangladesh (yes we have fallen that far)?

Then you wonder why monsters like the PPP and the PNC exist to destroy what should have been a wealthy and progressive country.

In a land with two large minority groups, there must exist a meeting point where they can engage each other, otherwise there will be conflict.

With your mindset Indians might as well form their own homeland where they can live and preserve their Little India, isolated from others.  Is this what you want?  One cannot take from a society, but not want some level of engagement with it!

ummm . . . interesting

I don't think you get it. In America, black people have the cultural space to be as black as they wanna be. And to define their blackness.

That is all I'm talking about here. The right of Indians to be as Indian as they wanna be. And to define the terms of their Indianness. Black people don't get a say in how Indian we are or are not.

Is this somehow controversial?

The question of the equal social, political, civil, economic etc etc rights of individuals before the Guyanese State is beyond question.

I'm tempted to say you're playing the race card here. But I hesitate to do so, your ad hominen attacks notwithstanding.

Little does Shaitaan know how he is unwittingly playing right into the hands of Afro Guyanese racists who wish to deny Indo Guyanese a role in Guyanese life because they feel that Guyana is the House that African Built, and that Indians are just temporary tenants.

In a country where 40% are Indian, and another 40% are Afro identified, I don't know that either group can claim that they don't care what the other group thinks of them.  Seems silly.

Holy Brahmanical Cow!

You really have been on GNI too long. In saying that Guyana is not a melting pot nation is a statement of historical fact. There was no assimilation ideal for new immigrants to achieve to become like "old citizens." So Indos assimilated according to the terms they negotiated for themselves.

You should refrain from trying to figure out where I find "severe angst." People engaging in their own lives do not cause me "angst." You're arguing against silly assumptions which I had expected to be beneath you.

You're so dishonest to say things I never said or believe and go places I never intend.

How many black Americans have an identity rooted in Africa?  They root their identity in Mississippi, Lousiana or South Carolina.  Their identity captures the fact that they are AMERICANS of African descent, and is rooted around the experiences that these people experienced over the centuries in the USA.  Most do not link themselves to other blacks, even those from the Caribbean, whose experiences in the Americas closely parallels theirs.

What they do know is isolating themselves from the rest of the USA is foolish and indeed their struggle has focused on their FULL INCORPORATION as US citizens.  Not hiding in a corner pretending to be Igbo, or Mandingo.

Now can you explain where I deny you the right to have your identity of some one whose ancestry is Indian and is based on the experiences of a people ROOTED in the Caribbean.  Because face it, you are OF THE CARIBBEAN, and ought to CLAIM YOUR SPACE IN IT!  Hiding in a corner just leave the path free for others who will gladly claim that the Caribbean experience is tied only to that of those of African descent.

You don't understand how your attitude results in you shooting yourself in the foot in a way that GUARANTEES the annihilation of the Indo Caribbean identity!  You aren't of India, and they don't want you, and if you don't claim your space within the Caribbean you are LOST@!!!

YOU are the one who seems to think that ACKNOWLEDGING that your culture and identity has ALREADY been modified by living among creoles, and in a former British colony, and in a zone increasingly dominated by US culture, some how diminishes you as a person.

i find it interesting because, as an American, i am a committed assimilationist

there is a necessary carve-out for religion by the creators of this Republic . . . every individual, after all, must be free to deal without fear or favor with his personal ontological shyte

topic worthy of discussion

I believe they root their identity in those places because that's as far back as they can go. The whites weren't so big on record keeping. Which begs the question, why did you spend good cash on a DNA geneology test if it was so meaningless to you?

Again, who is arguing for anyone isolating themselves? You're just making shyte up and arguing against it. Again, you've been on GNI too long that you assume that these Indo personality types represent all of us.

You need to let go of this black desire to dictate to Indians how we should negotiate our cultural spaces and our future. I don't presume to lecture blacks on black culture so I don't expect a lecture on Indian culture.

I'm sure those Italian-Americans who are deeply proud of their Italian heritage don't earn similar sanction in your eyes.

Let blacks be blacks and Indos be Indos. And let them define that personally and in their own cultural spaces.

Guyana is a multi ethnic and multi cultural society.  Like it or not, every Guyanese culture has had impact on the cultures of others, and indeed even you admitted the degree to which you have been (partially) creolized, and the comfort level that this brings to you in mixing with Afro Caribbean people.

Now my knowledge of Indo Guyanese cultures gives me a path to interact with people from the South Asian subcontinent.  My exposure to a multi religious society gives me the ability to understand that the world consists of many belief systems and that it makes sense to attempt to understand others, and even to respect them.  Indeed growing up in a land where multi syllable Hindu names is common prepared me for the USA with multi syllable non Anglo Saxon names from elsewhere. Had I grown up in Barbados I would lack these traits.

You really don't understand or respect the advantages that living in a MULTI cultural society like Guyana brings.  It is the very fact that, not only is Guyana diverse, but that people are forced to outreach beyond their cultural walls is what enables us to thrive in an increasingly multi cultural global world!

To use a phrase which David Dinkins coined.  Guyana is a gorgeous mosaic where groups maintain their identity, but touch and impact, and are impacted by others. 

Why is a society like this wrong is one that only some one who suffers from their own insecurities, like you obviously do, can answer?

My God you can lie well bai. When did I ever argue against a multicultural society?

Are we even having the same conversation?

The point (if there is one) is simply that the Indos are allowed their own cultural space like everyone else. This is only one facet of their multifaceted existence in a multicultural and multiracial Guyana. This is how it always has been and how it always will be.

That's all.

We got here simply because I pointed out that less Indos through douglarization means less Indian culture. That seems to make sense. The Jews encourage their kids to marry other Jews but don't go apeshit when they don't. Where's the genocide of black people here?

In multi cultural societies there will be some level of cultural blending, and intermarriage, which you scream means the complete annihilation of the Indian identity.

So no you don't like multicultural societies, because they never function in the cultural lock box which you seem to demand.

A multicultural society, which Guyana definitely is has several manifestations.

1.  the existence of many cultures and identities.

2.  interaction between these various groups.

3.  this leads to cultural impacts as there is sharing by each.

4.  each multi cultural group becomes transformed from what it once was, while maintaining its distinct identity (because if it didn't it wouldn't be multi cultural).

Call it creolization, douglarization, melting pot, or gorgeous mosaic, but this is inevitable.  Unless the elders of each group shield their kids from interacting with others, as Indians used to do until a generation ago, and so old farts still want to do today.

Compare Guyana and Barbados.  10% of the population of Barbados isn't black, and yet Barbados isn't a place which one will consider to be multi cultural. It is a monolithic creole society which developed from the interaction from the African slave and the British planter.  Barbados has little tolerance for those who are different, and look at Hindus who refuse to be Christians as not wanting to conform.

You will admit that Guyana is a radically different place and that Guyanese of no race in this day and age, demand that any group conform to the cultural norms of others.  It indeed however is a society where there is a lot of cultural interaction, as manifested in our speech patterns, foods, musical tastes, sense of humor, etc.

I submit that a Guyanese has many advantages in engaging a multi cultural world than does a Barbadian.

I don't doubt that there will be some level of cultural blending and intermarriage. That's fine.

But when the intermarriage rate exceeds endogamy then we're an endangered species. It's just a statement of fact.

I won't rip up my shirt and throw ashes in my hair if that happens. So be it. But I do think we should take some proactive steps to survive as a group.

That's all. No fancy anti-black agenda.

For the record, I'm not specially ill disposed towards douglarization. I'm opposed to my children specifically marrying whites, blacks, or Vietnamese or whatever.

I just want my descendants to look like me. It's a selfish desire I know but it's just a human desire.

I don't think I'm some special creature above other races. I just think we ought to preserve our culture and marriage and progeny are a big part of cultural preservation.

So do you plan to go to every nightclub and separate every Indian make or female who is interacting with some one of the opposite sex who is of a different ethnic group?  Will you disown those who intermarry, when it exceeds some allowed quota.

Short of that I really don't know how you can enforce your desire to retain "purity".  Indeed the notion of some one of Indian origin espousing such a creed is interesting when one considers that India is a land where just about every race of mankind has walked and has intermarried and has undergone tremendous cultural transformation over the centuries.

Life is life and people make their choices.  Cultures and identities evolve, and there is not one thing that any one can do to stop this.  Indeed what drives many young Indo Guyanese to intermarry are their elders who try to tell them who they ought to be, this being especially true for Indian females.