BTW to talk of a harsh environment in Guyana is nonsense.  Aside from gold. all of our economic activity is on or near the coast.  No hurricanes, no earthquakes, no mudslides, fewer droughts than other parts of the Caribbean, and most of our flooding is because of poorly maintained drainage and irrigation systems.

Look at events on Dominica and then look at how lucky Guyana is!  They had a drought, and now 12inches of rain washing down the mountains on to the infrastructure, farms, homes, etc.  And this is not the first time.  Guyana only had an Act of God to a similar degree when about 10 years ago we had that massive flood.

How so because all you can conclude is that Indians, and Africans vote according to race, and Amerindians are more sympathetic to the PPP, and the mixed to the PNC and AFC.

You do not even know why Amerindians are more desposed to the PPP, and why mixed more tend to APNU/AFC.  Unless you know who these "mixed" are (and I do not think that any one knows) what data for mixed shows is meaningless.  Mixed and Amerindians are now 30% of the overall population, and a smaller but increasing part of the voter base.

Racial voting by Indians and Africans has been known since 1957.  Why is this conclusion so earth shattering to you, and really all you can say, using your methodologies is that the major groups vote race?  NO NEW INSIGHT!

More important to know why this ethnic insecurity persists, even as those who fought in the early 60s civil war are mainly dead, or senile.

Guyana Times is a new paper, so clearly our ethnic problems cannot be blamed on them.

They peddle Indian bigotry because there are NO sanctions against those who peddle Indian bigotry, because our narrative about race in Guyana aligns with the mythology peddled by Indian bigots, so eloquently outlined by Danyael.

Please do not tell me that atitudes described by Danyael, arent widely popular among Indian middled aged and older people, even if not by the millenial generation.  YOU know better than that.

I note that you scurry away, rather than discuss why there is no sanction by Indians on those Indians who pubicly spray bigotry.

No African who babbles that "evil Indians deserve to die because they are treacherous and love money too much" will be viewed seriously within the African community. 

But "black man lazy, violent and savage" was mentioned in a FULL PAGE Chronicle editorial.  We are still waiting for Indians, aside from the few "neemakarams" who are viewed as self hating, to comment on that.

Yes you blame the PPP for racism.  You do NOT want to discuss Indian racism in its larger context, and why the PPP can OPENLY campaign on racism and yet win the support of its base. 

The PNC can no longer engage in this behavior and be viewed with credibility.

Clearly there is more space in Guyana for PUBLIC displays of Indian than there are for African bigotry. WHY?

My view is economic concerns are at the root of the ethnic insecurity from as early as 1842 when the second general strike of Africans became ineffective because of the immigration of labor on indenture contracts. It has nothing to do with Indians having some fear of an African dominated army, which has been quite professional since 1992. Don't deal with the economic problems - which is a function of the harsh environment (harsher than hurricane prone Caribbean islands) and limited competitively exploitable resources - and they will get nowhere. The best resource is the diaspora. But that's another matter...AFC-APNU made a tacit agreement not to exploit the diaspora. I have no more time to waste with Guyanese leaders. But I must say it's a gold mine for an academic career. I am almost certain anonymous referees will see the new insight.

It is the PERCEPTIONS of economic access, which is often PERCEIVED to be about who controls the government.  This is why the ethnic elites practise ethnic exclusion and ethnic patronage.  Because it allows them to control political behavior.

Using data to compare rural and urban people is also meaningless, unless there is sophisticated analysis. 

In urban area 100% of consumed items must be purchased with CASH.  RENTS are also higher. Target standard of living is also higher in urban areas, hence larger expenditures on clothing.

So if some one in an urban area earns 25% more, but the cost of living is 50% higher, then are they better off?

In addition most employed people in urban areas are wage employees, so their incomes are easily discerned, and also taxed.  They will also be more impacted by VAT, as their purchases will be mainly through formal channels.

The question that you need to ask yourself will be how accurate income reporting of rural self employed dwellers might be, given that they are paid in cash, and can more easily evade income taxes.

Please explain to me how Dominican farmers, whose crops might be wiped out several times a year from hurricans, mudslides, etc., that their conditions are easier than Guyana.

Explain to Jamaican farmers, who alternate through drought and hurricanes, that it is easier.  This when they do not have to deal with US foodstuff being dumped/  With lowercargo rates, and closer proximity, it is easier to dump US food in Jamaica, than it is in Guyana, where greater distance and higher cargo rates offset any advantage that US producers will have, given the massive subsidies which they get.

Any case I do not see what this has to do with the fact that the PPP and Indian elites are free to engage in OPEN bigotry against blacks, with no fear of sanction, or shame?  If the view of Indians is that blacks are lazy and criminal, and if most of those making the hiring decisions are Indians, then what does this do to the employment prospects for blacks?

Yes this is the core of the African ethnic security dilemma in 2015.  You would have done more good in responding to Danyael's assertions, which reflect the views of most non Indians in Guyana, than to claim that you want to test whether Guyanese vote race or not!

And yes we already know that Indians suffered under the Burnham regime, and not all were positioned to benefit from supplying goods in the black market, which emerged when the economy collapsed.  That has been very very frequently discussed, and most African intellectuals do NOT dispute this fact!

It is clear the history of our racial schism began the day Gladstone decided to write his friend to bring in indentures to undercut the wages of africans and keep them bound to the plantocracy by economic want. Indeed they made the rich bottom lands along the rivers illegal for homesteading.

Unlike in places like Trinidad and Jamaica where availability of land forced Africans to remain tied to the plantations, there were no such limitations in Guyana. The maroons survived in the hostile cockpit country of Jamaica so Africans, if they could have, would definitely have migrated away to more remote but protective areas. The homesteading laws kept them bound to the plantations.

But this is besides the point. You insist it is economics that has our peoples apart. Economics cannot explain the cultural taboos and the ideas of Africans being subhuman that is a feature of the Guyanese indian culture. These Indian Guyanese  believe to their bones that Africans are stupid and you often hear them hurling statistics of how well indians are doing all over the world ( a truly pathetic claim ) as opposed to how poorly Africans are doing  ( ignoring the fact 99% of Indians are in the same boat).

This racism that indians have for black people in guyana is venomous. I went to a gathering in memory of Emmet Till a few nights ago and It occurred to me the same deep seated venom  that caused Emmet to appear mangled in the Tallahatchie river  resides in the heart of many. The idea of douglerization as an anti burnham regime is an indicator here. The aversion of Indians for their blended siblings is another.

Indians people hate black and amerindian people. That is a fact. Amerindians seem not to hate anyone and that needs to be explained also within the context of any explanations for racism, economic or cultural,  since they are most oppressed by both Groups.

Africans, in my opinion, detest being hated. They were the haters at first given they were forced into adversarial roles by the plantocracy . They most definitely resent the PPP government allowing Indians like BK and Nabbie, Bobby etc getting all the contracts from the state with minor ones going to African firms.

I have a friend who build all sort of projects all over the Caribbean whose name is like the former PM, Sam Hinds and he could not get building a septic tank out of the PPP. That man was a loving man turned bitter and today I can say with confidence he hates Indians because he believes them to be chronically racist. But in African cultures, there are none of the parallel prohibitions against consorting, mingling or even living among Indians.

I grew up among them, you are of them like me and I say our experience cannot be different. Indians hate black people viscerally and that hate cannot be explained by mere economics. If so it should be black people with the same cultural prohibitions etc. In the Diaspora the same thing continues.

Aren't you Indian and Amerindian?  This is the first time I have heard that Indians hate Amerindians.  I grew up in GT so I must have missed your experience.  There is hatred between the Indians and Africans fostered by politicians.  As recently as the 50s Indians and Africans worked together for their common good.  It is basically the desire for power by Burnham that created the division.  Even Eusi did not side with Burnham in the beginning and even in the end.

Nah man...don't blame old boy Forbes. He did not start the ethnic divisions. The suspicion and division started around 1845 when the labour market opportunities of Africans were undermined by the arrival of new immigrants, brought there specifically to curtail the market power of the recently freed slaves. Indians eventually became the majority immigrant group, so the conflict is mainly Afro-Indo. Political economy explains a lot why Guyana is a dankey cart economy.

Indians definitely hate Amerindians. My pregnant mom was sent away to family ( white half) in England to avoid the attrition of my fathers Indian half. We came home only when our father gained the courage to stand up to his mother. My grandfather protected us. Every Amerindian will tell you they are seen as dumb and with out culture by indians.  Africans have no greater love for them or respect for them than Indians. BTW, I grew up all over and can say with little reservation the same is expressed universally. Georgetown Indian do not vote differently than rural indians.  I say it is home grown culture that only a few escaped. You may be one of those who came from a family of more self reflective people.

You cannot foster the kind of entrench cultural aversions in Indian society plainly out of politics. It has to grow on some latent fertile and receptive  foundation. Africans experienced the same deprivations as Indians and they do not have any of the cultural embedding. They are more reacting. With Amerinds they take the superior notion and that could only be excuse on them needing someone to kick...I do not know why they hate amerindians. The point is we need to explore it because you know my thesis....( do be disproved) that it is our people that keeps us from being what we can be.

Understood and agree that suspicion and division started around 1845.  Frankly a lot of African anger was also directed towards the early Portuguese. However, there is no question that Indians and Africans have combined their efforts to fight colonialism.   The inbred distrust between Indians and Africans came to a fore again because of Burnham.  I guess you read Odeen's History of Guyana but I am not sure if you read West on Trial.  You have to read West on Trial with an open mind even with your distrust/hatred of Cheddi Jagan.

By 1845, Africans were educated and began to take up jobs in the colony away from the plantations-teachers, midwife, sailors, stevedores, merchants, farmers, vendors at Stabroek Market, etc, etc. Those who wanted to be employed in the plantations did get to work, perhaps mainly as factory help(technical). The field help were mainly Chinese, Portuguese, Freed African from USA and East Indians. Before the East Indians, Gladstone brought every other ethnic group into British Guiana-he had a monopoly of trading in the Americas and Europe. Itwas important for the trading of his commodities.

Before William Wilberforce died, he had laws passed in the British Parliament to ensure the end of African Slavery-not all slavery. Only African Slavery.

At the time of emancipation, Britain removed the duties and tariff on sugar from all other regions of sugar producers. British Guiana planters lost their preferential treatment. In order

to continue on, costs had to lowered. The same what GUYSUCO is currently experiencing. 

It shouldn't be too difficult to check the historical records.

In a business, there has to be survival. I doan think Gladstone decided to do the black in for wanting to be free. It was the survival of his income.

As for the demise of Black businesses at Stabroek and as merchants, those who know the history of the era, would know that the Portuguese made deal with black farmers for their produce. Which they seldom paid for. And in the end, Black vendors at Stabroek gave up their stalls to the Portuguese.

what "slavery" other than African chattel slavery existed in the British Empire at that time may i ask?

The Tamil people. They were shipped to Ceylon as slaves. And the earliest to Mauritius.

Again bad black man good Indian.  Eusi left the PPP because he said that it had become an Indian based racist Indosupremacist party, which had no room for non Indians. So even though Eusi didn't trust Burnham, he was forced to join them.

Answer this.  How could Burnham have focused on race if the African vote was LESS than the Indian vote?  Even if Burnham got 100% of the African votes he still would have lost.

In 1957 and in 1961 Burnham did NOT have control over the electoral apparatus, could NOT rig, and therefore had NO INCENTIVE to spread the doctrine of apan jhat.

It is clear that the PPP, with Indians being the majority vote in most of the constituencies (it was a winner take all in a constituency then), had the incentive to spread apan jhat.

SO SAVE ME YOUR RACIST NONSENSE about "black savage beating up innocent Indians".

If any party is responsible for racist voting it is the PPP, as it was the PPP, and NOT the PNC, nor the UF, which had something to gain by race based voting.

The West on Trial is the biggest piece of racist filth every written.  I read it cover to cover and found it appalling, and lacking in scholarship.  Just a whiney Cheddi and Janet attempt to glorify themselves, and blame every one else for their failures!

The whole focus of this book was to paint the Indian as the victim, the African middle class as the demon, and Afro Guyanese as violent savages.

At no point is there any reference to any role by the PPP or Indo Guyanese for the ethnic tensions which exist.

The West on Trial is now the bible used by the Indo KKK to demonize Afro Guyanese.

You are an idiot.  I have wasted enough time on you.  Janet was not an author of the West on Trial so she couldn't have glorified herself in it.  I agree with you that the book can sound "whiney" and an attempt by Cheddi to portray himself as a victim.  But he was indeed a victim to British and American politics of the day.  The book never sought to portray Africans as savages.  It did show how they were used by Burnham to get to his ends.  I have noting to say to the regurgitating bile you spew here everyday.

The book also covered the role of the so-called elite Indians in undermining Jagan.  Frankly the likes of today's Jagdeo and company would have fitted those elites to a tea.

The West on Trial set the stage for this notion of the savage black man which you scream daily.  That damns it for me.

Now run along and scream "dem baad, savage, lazy black man a beat up coolie", because that is the core thesis of that piece of racist drivel.

Don't worry you have already damned me as a racist, but have NEVER commented on cobra, seignet, yuji, rama and their comments on blacks.  But why the shock, like you they are imbued with the PPP motto of "baad black man a beat up collie"?

Could it be their perception of the crime situation in Guyana?  Which race is mainly the perpetrator and which race is mainly the victim?

OK more Indo supremacist chatter. 

Now I can descend to your level and select negative behavior by a segment of the Indian business elites, like not paying taxes, drug and gun smuggling, and engaging in the arming of criminals for use as paramilitias, and then blame 100% of the Indian population, but I will not.

Continue to show what a racist you are.

BTW some of the guns used are provided by these same "business men" for use in various contract killing and other criminal actions that they order.  Yet you blame "blackman", when again Indians are hardly innocent.

Well lets just concentrate on the regular choke and rob and home invasions...Which race is mainly the perpetrator and which race is mainly the victim?

We could also extend this to the political violence experienced in Guyana also.

And he continues with his Indo supremacist brays.

Yes blame the 350k Guyanese of African and mixed ancestry for activities which not more than 1% engage in.

Why do you insist in painting yourself as a racist?

So tell you what, should I blame the 300k Guyanese of Indian descent for the fact that the guns used by criminals were imported by INDIANS?

Indians like this banna?  Whatever happened to this case?  Maybe the Indians paid him to do it...got you.

May 9, 2015

THE Guyana Police Force has reported that, at about 11:30 hrs yesterday, during the clearing of a cargo consignment at the GNIC Wharf in Georgetown by Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) Officials, a cache of arms and ammunition was found comprising two (2) AK 47 rifles, four (4) 40 pistols, eleven (11) 9mm. pistols, fifteen (15) extra magazines for the firearms, 489 various caliber rounds for the firearms and a body protection vest.

Police took into custody a 23-year-old construction worker of Buxton/Friendship, East Coast Demerara after the very frightening discovery was made in a shipment that was posted to him by someone from a United States of America address.

‘ARRESTED’: Jamal Murphy

Jamal Murphy who, up to late last evening was still being grilled by the Police, was arrested after he showed up to receive the consignment that was in his name at a City wharf.

When the man had finished paying for the shipment and was about to uplift, Officers of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), as is customary, opened the shipment in his presence and found that there was food-stuff in the box as well as a military haversack.

When the GRA Officers opened the haversack, they stumbled on the weapons, which according to police sources, are all brand new.
In the bag were the shocking arms cache. Police sources told this newspaper that the pistols are likely to carry a very high price since they come with sensors which automatically cause the price for weapons with such features to be spiked.

Information reaching the Chronicle stated that when the young man was questioned by the police, he told them that the box was not his property but that he was only receiving the shipment for someone else.

Investigators reported to this newspaper that when Murphy was pulled in for questioning, he sounded very confident about what he was saying as he did not give them much information, saying only that he was uplifting the shipment for a man whom he knows only as a “tall red person.”

The police are of the view that the man might have been schooled by legal minds before heading to uplift the shipment. The Police yesterday carried out a search at the young man’s home where some documents were removed from the premises to aid in their investigation.

Among the documents removed were papers which suggested that the 23-year-old from the Buxton/Friendship area had received  another shipment sometime last month from the very person, but the contents of that box are not yet known.

The police are also of the view that based on the description provided by the young man, the man to whom the shipment was consigned is a person of interest to them and has been so for some time now.
The police are likely to issue a Wanted Bulletin for the man over the weekend if they are unable to locate him at the places their intelligence leads them to. (Leroy Smith)

TK,

Rest assured I am not interested in another Burnham. But it seems the indo KKK here is interested with their pathetic attempts to paint Granger in the same light. They will accept nothing but an indian government.

I have expressed similar views like Danyael's in the past. The racism practiced by many indians appears endemic to me as a black man, especially rural indians. Believe me, the "few ignars" here (rama, brahmin susie yugi, cobra, nehru, skeldon man, anan, observer, seignet, george da silva etc) are not in the minority. Its just that anonymity has emboldened them to be real. It is why the PPP easily motivates their base with race.

I know what I have lived through, heard and experienced, and I still hold there is something terribly wrong with them. I only hope the young ones are more tolerant of other races.

Itaname, there are many Africans that are just as racist as Indians.  When we move to Barr Street in Kitty one of our neighbors were "elite Africans."  One of the sons was the CEO of Guyana Telecommunications.  These people never for a day said hello to us even though we tried to be friendly to them.  I recall that at about 8 years old I used to steal their sugar cane which was on the border with our property.  Their solution was to chop every sugar cane and get rid of it.

On the bright side some of our tenants were very poor Africans.  These were my best friends that I grew up with.

You rass is a mad man with an anti-Indo axe to grind.  I tell you, nuff Indin bannas like Amerindo, look how many impregnated Amerindo girls. 

seriously . . .

does this kind of snarl make u feel, personally, less of an antiman?

Of course you really believe that a 23 y/o did this on his own.

You also think that Columbus discovered the Americas.

Guns are imported by wealthy people.  Is this guy wealthy, or just a scape goat?

So all of those Indo girls who SUPPOSEDLY got impregnated in National Service shows how much blacks love Indians?

You are a real stupid man, blinded by your bigotry/

Really, never heard of that!  Anyway, my comment was contextualized for the Indian-hater Stormborn.

There were many racist Afros and true, there were many decent ones also.  I knew a few, man they would not be bothered breaking their car for an Indian.  It was like, Indian beware.  Them bannas was arrogant no ass, on top of the world!!

Stormborn talks about Indian racism and African racism.  Amerindians cannot do anything other than hate non Amerindians, because they lack any power, otherwise he would also talk about racism within that community.

Now when do you address the very Indian racism which you perpetrate, like your penchant for calling blacks lazy, violent, criminal savages who live off hard working Indians?

You know why you do this.  Because you are not shamed by other Indians from doing this.  Vishmahabir, Zed, VVP and others line up and call caribj,redux,itaname, and danyael racists for raising the issue of Indian racism. 

NONE of us deny the existence of racism among blacks, nor do we claim that they are any LESS racist.

What we do is raise the fact that most Indians deny the existence of racism among Indians, even as they use every opportunity to blame blacks for Guyana's ethnic tensions!

This is what this thread is about.  Up to now NO INDIAN has done anything other then refuse to discuss this topic. 

This proves to many of us non Indians that, while racism is hardly unique to Indians, bigotry expressed by Indians has more space in Guyana than is bigotry from other groups, because Indians do not condemn it.  Instead they condemn those who raise the fact that it exists.

  "Yes among the savage blacks there are a few decent ones.

Indians however are saints who express nothing but love for blacks, and are heart broken that they get pure hostility in return".

This is the message that the GNI Indians push and any other perspective is seen as pure racism.

Luck how they scurry around like cockroaches when ever Indian racism is exposed.

Nah, I have to admit, of lat there have been a few wutliss Indian bannas.

Reflecting a larger body of opinion present among Indians.

Originally Posted by baseman:

You rass is a mad man with an anti-Indo axe to grind.  I tell you, nuff Indin bannas like Amerindo, look how many impregnated Amerindo girls. 

 

I do not doubt it is easier for you to accept that I have an axe to grind than that you represent that section of the toxic racist indian contingency that keeps us stagnated economically and socially.

If the idea of demonstrating a non racist position was to highlight the impregnated Amerind girls then why the Indian taboo against black men with indian women or the children of these unions?

You bigots tie yourselves in knows logically every time you open your mouths because there is no basis to defend the desiccated racist platforms on which you stand. One simply has to nudge it to knock it over.

The problem with the West on Trial is the premise th at the West ( the US and Britain) were indictable for Cheddi's swallowing whole cloth the communist dogma fed to him by his wife.

Indians are a religious people and they were being gulled by his communist world view only because they had nothing to lose being poor. His  promise of Utopian bliss was something to cling to on the outside chance it may be true.

Africans were also afraid of the religious implications. It was the message their priests were giving them about ungodly communism ( and not off the mark) Being also a bit more informed they sided with what they know, the brits and the persuasive Burnham who milked that in his opposition to cheddi . Together with the commercial class of upper crust indians and Portuguese, they saw a whole way of life being threatened.

The US had Civil Rights banging the door of its conscience demanding to be treated fairly;  Vietnam in asia, Flower Power blooming everywhere and there wasCuba as a proxy for the Soviet in a competition for global hegemony. It had no time for another Cuba like soviet satellite in Guyana. We were not a problem to be studied and marinate mentally. It just could not happen; a communist Guyana as a toe hold in latin america.

These events all converged to act against Cheddi. That he is seen as a savior in the Indian community does not make him right or a saint. Our fate would be no less than the other satellites of the former soviet union...a long life of want and deprivations.

Burnham's failure was his failure to anticipate due to his greed for power. Jagan indeed needed to be undermined if but to avoid what he predicates. The reality is that no one would remotely consider his positions then salutary now.  We did not get any smarter  than the people then who were evaluating their chances at home as residents. It is clear that if the situation was the same and we know what we know we would not let him get his way wither. He was on trial not the West.

I guess your premise is based on Jagan being a full blow communist as the West tried to portray even though they new very well that he was not.  Jagan never wanted to ban religious practices or had any inclination to form a one-party state like Castro did.  His main interest was the nationalization of the major industries in Guyana for the benefit of the Guyanese people.  We may disagree with this policy but that DOES NOT make him a communist.  He was more a socialist.

Jagan demise was all based on Kennedy's politics of winning the next US presidential election.  Kennedy tired to prevent the semblance of another Cuba in South America, which would have been a terrible black mark on his chances of winning the next elections.  In discussion with Jagan, Kennedy made clear that he was not opposed to nationalization of industries provided that they were compensated.  Kennedy was also keen on maintaining democracy and Jagan assured that he favors parliamentary democracy.   However, Kennedy did not want to take any chance and undermined the politics in Guyana through CIA involvement.  It is no surprise that Kennedy's special assistant Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. later apologized to Jagan for US role in undermining him in the 60s.

The rest is history that we all know about.  It is interesting that a country that supposed to be the embodiment of democracy uses perverse means to undermine democracy in other countries.