I think interracial marriages can be used to strenghten Cultures and Traditions. People usually get married because they are in love. People in love usually are inclined to respect each other in totallity. In conclusion, I am saying tht it is very possible to have interracial marriages and keep our Culture and Tradition alive and well.

 You think very narrowly. First cultures are organic. They cannot be engineered. Secondly, inter cultural marriages has more a history in the arena of domination and assimilation of one culture over a another than for strengthening the cultures of the couple independently. For that reason many cultures have prohibitions to inter cultural marriages that are informal and formal.

Further, when two cultures combine the original cultures do not  continue. They become something different. New Cultures grows at the interstices of progenitor cultures. Indians in Guyana are a synchretic culture. It does not exist in whole cloth anywhere in India. It burrowed from many Indian traditions to forge what presently exists.

I am not qualified to comment on this complex topic. I will give my best response.

Firstly, we must now change our heritage songs and mottos from land of six races to land of seven races or should we stop using the number of races and use the term Guyanese ? I prefer Guyanese since this will prevent us from identifying with any single race and make us more patriotic.

It took me a lot of soul searching to end my biases that most of us carry. Some hide it nicely and pretend that it does not exist but if they were to be totally honest, it does exist. You clean these biases if you look deep down inside and realize that we all come from the same source.

My son opened up my eyes and had a profound effect on me to end my biases.

Inter-Racial relationships will continue to grow over time. In fact, president Bill Clinton once said that the USA will some day have the largest segment of race as mixed where whites will no longer be the majority.

Why fear change ? Culture and tradition are not firmly rooted and will change. Take a look at how many of us who moved to the west and adjusted our culture and tradition to fit our new homeland. Culture clash exists but that in itself is a sign of change.

Our first responsibility is to love God  and serve him who happens to have many names, Christ, Allah and Krishna etc. We tend to wrongly confuse and tie together culture and tradition with the scriptures and this is cause of anxiety and conflict across the world today. Extremists tie these things together to cause division.

When we honestly respect the other person's scripture and point of view , we have harmony. We must also respect those who do not believe in scripture since the creator has given us independence to choose.

There is no such things as African or Indian culture. Is there such a handbook ? Did the creator gave us such a handbook of culture ? No, he did not. He instructed us to love him and his creation and serve him with faith, love and conviction. We are guilty of trying to protecting a "culture" that has actually been created by us and try to hang on to it but it is ever evolving and we resist and hate other people in order to preserve something that will eventually change just like Guyana now having mixed race and new culture.

So you see, this thing we call culture and tradition will forever keep changing.

Our skin colour is just an outer dress, the Bible informs that God created man in his own image and Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita instructs that he is the seed giving father of all living entities. He did not say that he is the father of Indians. He clearly stated that he is the seed giving father of ALL living entities.

If we are to truly understand that we are all equal and that our skin colour is an outer dress then our racial biases immediately disappears and we become respectful of all. Until then, we will remain bitter and hateful and will try to preserve our "culture and tradition" instead of living a peaceful and respectful life.

I can speak from my own experience. I identified and corrected my weakness, so can others.

Let us call a spade a spade.

I guessed you summarized it in one sentence.

Point well taken! here come the big question: How many Indo-Guyanese have a black Father, Mother, Brother-in-law or Sister-in-law? Since most of you accept inter-racial relationship, then I guess you wouldn't mind having a black man or woman in your family. Am I on the right track?

I do not believe the above is problematic for anyone here but you. Terry is correct; this is a nonsense thread.

mORE THAN NONSENSE11oNLY A CHAMMAR CAN START SUCH A FOOLISH CONVERSATION11

Shut your racist crap.

TI spoke for himself and not for you. It's easy to discount a topic and say it is nonsense when people care less about the preservation of their identity. This topic is as important as any political nonsense that discussed here daily. I am an Indo-Guyanese and I am very concerned about tainting my identity with another race. When you can see the effect of Indo-women of muslim, Hindu and Christian backgroung, holding hand with an Afro, kissing and making out, then you can come back and tell me what you think. Since Chief Butt in, he should be able to add something how he view Muslim indo-women with Afro men.

It is a silly topic since it has no informational context except to validate your latent bigotry. One in five Guyanese is of mixed race so the question as to how many has already been answered.

If you are an Indo Guyanese you have a synchretic identity already since it exists as a cobbled form of many Indian traditions and has no parallel in India. There is nothing to taint since it demonstrated it's capacity to accept what is good and reject what is bad. You are what it is rejecting as bad for it!

If you see cross cultural liaison as an odium think how you appear to the rest of us....as an odious throwback to a time long gone and for good reasons. Chief does not have to answer since by doctrine of Islam the Ummah al Islam does not see race or culture but creed.

There will be a new God in the future...and it will be ah Dougla god

btw...w/o googling...what is syncretic?

Inter-relationship IS our heritage.

Let's check it out from D2 dictionary!

Answered in the sentence ..."Indians have a syncretic identity ....since exists as a cobbled form of many Indian traditions"

I agree with you and it's beyond the scope of the intellect of the topic starter.

There is no longer any such as "Indian" or "African" culture in Guyana.  Centuries of blending of the various ethnic groups, colonization, and more recently American influences has led to a cultural continuum. Not only do virtually ALL Guyanese display cultural influences beyond their own immediate ancestry, but we utlize these influences variously based on a particular context within which we operate.

Ravi Dev will not like this as he pretends that there is a sharpcultural differentiation which separates Indians in all contexts from other Guyanese, but this is a fact.  "Douglarization" ha soccurred and it began the minute that the first Europeans encountered Amerindians and continued as each other gtroup arrived, willingly or not, in Guyana.

Quote by: caribny

There is no longer any such as "Indian" or "African" culture in Guyana.

Says who? Indians and Africans have a long tradition of distinctive cultural background. Only Guyanese Black people love to inter mingle with Indians to bring forth Douglas.

It has to be a concern about the number of young Indo Guyanese women who are rushing to marry white and mulatto men.  If this trend continues it will become a clear and present danger to our existence as a South Asian origin people on the South American continent. 

I am saying this as a man who had both grandmothers that were partly white.

You ever see a Jew or Chinese marrying a black person?

That is pure racist bull. There are hardly 500 white males in Guyana and if they marry Indian girls that is a function of there also being hardly enough white girls around.

Through our colonial history we all have experiences where our family were blended with into colonial white families or there would not be any mulatto as you so elegantly and framed it by culling a vestige of our racist legacy.

As I noted earlier, culture cannot be engineered. It is organic and grows like kudzu...where ever it wills and relentlessly.

You are partly white by your own accounting and if history tells us right our ancestors did not see mixing with other races as a hindrance. Scoble noted the men of the Hesperus and WHitby did not find it an inconvenient to willingly cohabited with the "negresses" on joining a plantation because they had not other woman available. Obviously of these unions are the first strains of mixing of the ethnic groups from our inception in the new world.

You need to get out more. I live next to an Sephardic Jewish temple and I see a number of black black folks walking there to it on the sabbath. History has a record of many. The bible tells us Solomon and Sheba seeded African jews who are still with us today with their over 2000 years of continuous Jewish history more in tack than other Jewish traditions. I suggest you broaden your horizons by slipping our of the racist cocoon that is stiffing your world view.

When I first went to North America I was told by a Chinese American that Chinese parents living in North America would tell their children to marry Chinese first, Other Asian orientals second and the third if they cannot find other orientals then to marry white people.  Under not circumstances should they marry South Asians and Blacks.  I was shocked to hear this.  It was truely different from Guyana.

Alot of those Jamaican singers are claiming that they are Sephardic Jews.  Most likely they are doing it so them Jews can help them out in the music industry and also they can get some of those Jewish chicks in bed.

The historical narrative constructed by rastas is that Ras Tafari, the last king of the Jews in Africa, has a legacy dating back to Solomon. I am sure that when they were constructing that myth they cared little of the music industry and Jewish influence there but to a grounding in history.

While I sincerely doubt  that Jamaican slaves were sourced from North Africa I do not deny them that right to say they are from the loins of Solomon. We all have to come from somewhere and wherever we choose to look in human history, we often find ourselves

Do you know that Ras Tafari (Selassie) became the Emperor of Ethiopia by marrying the Emperor's daughter after her husband died.  She was the heir to the throne not him. She was the ruler not him. The man  (Selassie) got the throne by marriage and controling his wife (who was the real ruler). 

His father was a chief not an Emperor.  I spoke to an Oromo man recently and he told me that Ras Tafari (Selassie) was adopted after the Chief MARRIED HIS MOTHER.  According to this Oromo man Selassie real father was an Indian merchant trader from India who ran away when he got Selassie's mother (who was the daughter of another chief) pregnant. As a favor by one chief to another chief the marriage was arranged with the pregnant girl. 

So stop believing this Selassie tale.  It is a bunch of nonsense. 

He was a  Makonnen so  he was of the line they insist was of Solomon. I also think you have the path to the throne wrong. In any event, it is not important for me to find that out today as it is irrelevant to me who he was.

I will decide for my self what is nonsense.

Everything I said here about how Ras Tafari came to the throne and became Selassie is documented. Read real Ethopian history not some Jamaican creation tale and you will see I am right.

Ras Tafari was like Gerhard (a popular young political leader with a young following of hundreds of youth).  That is the reason why he was selected by the Emperor to marry the Emperor's widowed young daughter.   Also if there is a DNA test by his children it will say if this Oromo man was right about Selassie's real father being a young Indian trader from India who ran away (from Ethiopia and his responsibility) after he got a Chief's daughter pregnant.

As I said I do not care who the hell he was and as an Ethiopian I am sure he can say he is of Solomon and Sheba no less than Muslims can say they are of Ishmael and Hagar  or the Jews from Rachel, Leah and Jacob. That the tales of these groups recess into the nebulosity of myth  is of little significance.

Some claim that Allah was a black man as well. Is there any truth to this?

By some you mean those of your clan who want to colorize god. Is that not the object of racism ie God made some lesser than others in the human clan and the racist (alone)in his wisdom has come to know this universal truth?

There is a man in America named Waheed Allah.  He just wrote a book called "In the name of Allah".  Alot of rap stars are endorsing the book.  It is available on Amazon.com

I am going to read it.

I got the man name wrong it is Wakeel Allah.

(Quote)Selassie's real father being a young Indian trader from India who ran away (from Ethiopia and his responsibility) after he got a Chief's daughter pregnant.(Quote)

OI Chief, you know bout dis?