Nagamootoo boasted he was, “the first Minister to refuse to accept an increase in his salary unless the Cabinet could have agreed to pay more to nurses and teachers”. Imagine that!!

I do believe the public has a short memory. Things will blow over. There are no other political alternatives. The current state of the PPP does not promise Guyanese people any hope.

I strongly believe, the current PPP must be turfed out. And a new one installed. It is a tough fight for that to happen. Even though I have come to have respect for Jagdeo's political savvy. But has to go.

The AFC has demonstrated that new political organizations can only be stooges.  

I TOTALLY AGREE!!  But in the current Guyana, it will be very difficult to find a great Leader.  Everyone into wealth and Power.

There are individuals with great leadership potentials. But the country is symbolic as a huge tree that has a canopy that prevents sunlight getting through in nurturing new growth. On the political scene, it is the same players in thoughts and deeds.  

Siggy, IMHO, real progress in Guyana will come only when race politics ends. In practical terms, that means the birth and growth of a national party that will supersede both the PPP and the PNC. And the emergence of a Rodney-type politician with potent charisma, intellectual prowess and the will to fight for real national unity. Granted, that is a long way down the road, but this PPP-PNC futile tug-o-war has gone on for 60 years and it must be brought to end before another 60 years.

Agreed to some extent but some political organizations have undergone change for the better.

Let us see what emerges from the defeated PPP and it's new emergence for the next five years.

We sometimes have to live with what we have but constantly work for change from within.

Yuji, I hope that PPP cann recruit some young, vibrant and educated individuals who can stop thinking like their parents and grandparents.

Bhai, wah was wrong wid them old people thinking? They never educated their first generations in BG to be racist. Dey teach how to survive on the meager wages paid to them. They teach us to mind cow, sheep and goats-plant rice and kitchen gardens. Bear we chaffe and press on. When the time came and they had some money they insist on education. Dem old people had implanted the hindu court of panchyats to deal wid their community issues. Dem old people worked along with Afro communities-and many very old Afroes will tell of that unique collaborations.

Until in the 50's when CBJ arrived on the scene and attacked the BGEIA as a racist communion in BG. He think he was holier than thou, telling those rural communities of Indians that were backward thinking. And he knows better. From 1838 the Indian had developed a system to progress. And they did very very well. Until the holocaust in the 60's. Suh show some respect to your forefathers. They gave us a promise of a better life and not shitting on the streets of Bihar. 

Siggy, What I meant was that the new breed of recruits would teach Guyanese how to think a nd not what to think. Guyanese were always taught what to think. We need to move away from this practice.

You're on the ball here, Siggy. When I was reading Dr Mohan Ragbeer's book The Indelible Red Stain I was surprised to discover the high level of cooperation between the British Guiana East Indian Association and the League of Coloured People. They were working towards the maintenance of peaceful co-existence between the Indo and Afro communities. Before Jagan and Burnham time, none of the sugar workers' uprisings was against black people, neither was any black disturbances against Indians. In 1924 when 12 protesting Indo sugar workers were gunned down by the colonialists, the black trade union leader Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow offered them his solidarity.

Guyanese in 2015 aren't the same people of 1978.  Guyanese are now a hardened, and very cynical people.  Just because "some one talk nice" isn't going to get them rushing.

What APNU/AFC have done is to crush the last vestige of belief that the population can rely on politicians.

As to racial unity.  Guyanese will get that when they really want it.  Guyanese will form civic institutions which will reach across the divide, and not depend on a Moses to lead the sheep to the Promised Land.

If Guyanese don't take the initiative to solve the problem, then they don't want it solved.  No Moses is going to appear.  The last Moses (Nagamootoo) is turning out to be a huge disappointment.  Clearly he loves $$$ as much as the PNC geriatrics do.

What is emerging from a defeated PPP is that it is a blatantly racist party extremely hostile to blacks.  Now even PPP blacks like Luncheon are saying this, so why would the remaining 98% who hate/fear them suddenly have a belief that they are embracing of true ethnic inclusion.

Black people said that the PPP was racist towards them, especially during the Jagdeo/Ramotar era.  Until the PPP comes to terms with that they aren't going to break into the black/mixed voting bloc.

YOU can be the racist that you are, and scream that blacks/mixed are wrong to hate the PPP.  They know what they experienced and you need to respect their views if you want their support.

Screaming that the PPP lost because of Berbice is showing how silly they are.  Evidence is that the PPP WON BACK the vote that it lost.  It lost because of a massive voter turn out in PNC strongholds, and the loss of some Indian votes in Demerara.  These urbanized Indians will not stand for PPP racist nonsense.

Indians were worse off than blacks in the 60s, and even today it isn't evident that the AVERAGE Indian is better off.

Of the indentured groups which came to Guyana Indians have done the WORST!

Funny thing that.  Racism is only because of Forbes Burnham, because I know that you wouldn't blame Cheddi.

Ask yourself why there was a need for a BGEIA and an LCP if Africans, mixed and Indians were so in love with each other.  Oughtnt there instead have been multi ethnic civil institutions which aimed at upgrading the living standards of the poor, and moving BG to independence as a vibrant nation.  

Barbados didn't have race based organizations, despite the definite black vs. brown/white fissures on that island.  So it wasn't inevitable that Guyana had to have ethnically based institutions.  They existed because of lack of trust and the fear that independence would be accompanied by ethnic domination by the winning group.

The mere existence of ethnically based organizations, whose main goals were to represent the interests of the SPECIFIC ethnic groups, laid the seeds of the pre independence tensions.  Why were they necessary if the various ethnic groups cooperated with each other?

The Indian and African/mixed elites were each focused on being the group which dominated Guyana at independence.  They had NO interest in engaging in any multi ethnic anything. 

When the PPP lost its African members, and moved to attain victory by wooing the Indian votes (their embrace of the calls for apan jhat), the dye was set.  It was easy to do because, contrary to what some propagate, neither group trusted the other.  There was only a surface cooperation because both suffered under colonialism.

I will be interested in finding out any attempts by the PPP, post 1957 in attempting to gain the trust of Africans.  Clearly apan jhat wasn't going to achieve that goal.

Please spare me the nonsense that only the departure of Burnham led to the ethnic tensions.  Today there are many who barely know or care about him, and yet our last election was once again another low scale ethnic war.  One could be 95% right in predicting the vote based on knowing the ethnicity of the voter.

And let us look at the root causes of the ethnic distrust between the elites of the two major groups.

Very early in the 19th C, the BGEIA demanded the importation of more Indian indentures, because it was their goal for Guyana to become an "Indian nation".  The African and colored elites, already seeing Indians out numbering them, and knowing that universal adult suffrage would mean Indian domination, attempted to block the importation of more Indians.

This happened before either Cheddi or Burnham were BORN.

Guyanese need to learn to be honest and admit that we don't trust each other because we just don't. And we never did since indentures began to arrive in BG.

It is NOT because of Forbes Burnham, as is the dominant opinion on GNI.

Carib, you misunderstood my point. I mentioned both Jagan and Burnham in equal measure. Let me add here clearly that both of them are responsible for race politics. I didn't say anything like "the departure of Burnham led to the ethnic tensions."

You might not have blamed Burnham but that is the general consensus on GNI.

In fact I blame neither for CREATING the ethnic tensions.  I merely blame BOTH for exploiting them.

Africans and coloreds, had pure animosity towards each other because of the colonial based system of skin color privilege, yet BOTH were so intimidated by the growing Indian population (who they feared as culturally alien, and as clannish, and lacking no regard for other ethnic groups) that they joined forces to start the LCP.  This in response to the BGEIA. 

There was a stated goal expressed in the early 20th C to turn Guyana into an Indian country, and to encourage continued immigration of indentures to attain that goal.

Societies characterized by inter ethnic cooperation do not have the need to establish ethnically based societies.  Both the BGEIA and the LCP had a POLITICAL goal.  These weren't merely cultural organizations.  So why was politics defined with an ETHNIC frame of reference if there was a spirit of cooperation between the two groups.

Given that BOTH groups faced the same problems, that of exclusion of their elites from being involved in governing Guyana, with the masses of BOTH living in extreme poverty, why the need for TWO ethnic organizations?

Guyanese need to stop excusing themselves from being responsible for ethnic tensions.  It was NOT Burnham and Cheddi who created it.  It was those who set up SEPARATE sports clubs based on RACE!  Cricket is cricket and yet in Guyana each ethnic group had their own clubs.

I doan know wey u gat that info from. Pooling ur views from the majority is not a good measuring stick. I know, before the 50's Indoes did pretty good. 

In a British Colony every body is a subject-ethnicity was never a consideration for the baccra man. He was in control with a Colonial Police Force and a Volunteer Force-all Blacks. It was Blacks who shot the Enmore Martyrs. Why didn't they shoot the White people instead. Before we came to BG why didn't the Blacks massacre the whites in Demerara Slave revolt. Blacks and Coloreds were were divided way before we came to Guyana. Why did Blacks in Guyana choose Marcus Garvy as their spokeman and representative.

People liked their own space.

So you are calling Cheddi a liar, because he claimed that they were extremely impoverished.  Your bible the "West on TRial" even claimed that Guyana was the opposite of East Africa.  There the Indians were a bueffer group between the British and the Africans.  Cheddi claimed that in Guyana it was the blacks who were the buffer group.

It will assault your notion of Indo superiority but in the 50s and 60s most Indians were quite poor, and complete illiteracy was not uncommon.

Ravi Dev will tell you that even today Indians are not better offr, aside from a small elite. He like you, thinks that Indos are superior.

As usual you ignore Indian violence.  In the 1880s yhey attacked blacks who were sent as scab workers.  Note that most of these Indians were born in India, and they thought that they were entitled to work that blacks, born in Guyana, or Barbados, were not entitled to get.

Any way you make my point.  Burnham WAS NOT responsible for the ethnic tensions, which existed since teh 19th C.

I am sure that you are aware that black police shot black strikers on many occassions, following orders. Of course you do not mention that, in your haste to scream "black man a kill ahbie".

While you are at it, discuss the fact that some of the drivers (almost all Indian) used to sexually harrass Indian females, knowing that they had the power to punish their fathers, if they tried to intervene.

An important historical consideration is that in both races Guyana and the Caribbean did not get the créme de la créme of the societies from where we came. Think of the possibilities if you had the business class or the intellectual class of both ethnicities. To borrow from Obama (who famously said that people cling to guns and God when things so south, on the campaign in San Francisco), people gravitated to religion, especially Indians - and of course the dominant religion Hinduism. It's easy to see how caribny's invocation of "we don't trust each other because we just don't".

Indoes slept well at nights-no BLackman dared to beat him up. The baccra man kept everybody in line. Plenty fish and rice to keep his family belly filled-long ago before PNC food lines. And they had plenty wuk in the cane fields-before PNC destroyed sugar. Indoes were a happy people in the 50's. We had radioes-old people entertained by Hindi songs, young people had pop music. Movies was a soldout, Hindi movies. We were joyful all the time until the kickdown doors and House of Israel thugs. 

We will always survive. Not because we are superior. WE ARE RESOURCEFUL.

The simpleton that you are failed to understand that the British ruled their colonies by encouraging divisions.  In Nigeria Igbo vs. Yoruba vs. Hausa/Fulani.  In India Hindu vs, Muslim.  In Guyana it was African vs.  Indian, and African vs. colored/Portuguese.  In the rest of the Caribbean it was African vs.colored/local white.

You white masters gave privileges, based on ethnicity and ensure that each remains jealous of the other.

In Guyana Africans became teachers and entered the lower/middle rungs of the civil service, and were the police men.  Their attempts at small farming and petty trading were destroyed, so they never established an independent economic base.

The Indian was supported in various land settlement schemes, and were there small businesses were less targeted by the colonial elites.  But they were kept out of the police force (too short and weak was the claim), and out of the civil service, and had limited access to education.

So keep on praising the white man as you are inclined to do.  Understand that the white Brits and Americans were quite happy when Africans and Indians slaughtered each other between 1962/64.

What can I say.   Hoyte arrested the bandits and the House of Israel, and the PPP let them go.   Yet foolish people continue to reward the PPP with 95% of their votes.  Even now many of Burnham's hooligans were working with the PPP.  Maybe that's why the crime surge as they no longer get PPP $$$ so I finding other ways.

The White folks have been away from the scene for a very long time. It's about time we take responsibility and stop blaming them for everything.

  So quit your clannish behavior and then non Indians might begin to trust you.   That election with the "Moses is not an Indian" was quite eye opening. 

You will note that no one demanded that any of the black candidates, even those with the PPP, assert that their main identity was about being black.  In fact the demand was that they be inclusive towards ALL Guyanese.

The USA didn't attract the cream of Europe ??????? caribny, a re-reading of money history in the US would show that this is not true. Lots of old money and technologies came from Europe. What gets attention is those who escaped persecution and famine, but don't devalue the contributions to American society in those early days by the rich and famous.

Indians and blacks do not have the same level of distrust in Jamaica. Let's see, 65,000 Indians in Jamaica out of a population of 2.8 million; versus the 40% of Indians who are the largest ethnic group in Guyana. And you wannna know why they're different? In fact more Indians came to Guyana than live there today.

To be honest most non Indian Guyanese don't trust Indians to put their nationality ahead of their ethnicity and we learned all about that by how the PPP galvanized the Indian vote by misquoting Moses.

I  see you had a conversation with over 350,000 Guyanese and learnt this.

There is this African proverb, "speak softly and carry a big stick." Doesn't that bring to mind an uppity Black person. Being a policeman means power and authority. The baccra knows this of the African since the days of slavery back in Africa.

Now, we Indians doan worry about the dog in the hands of its owner. We concentrate on the owner of the dog. We study how to get him to call off his dog and keep it leashed. And we go about our business bearing we chaffee. Forbes Linden Samson Burnham was the owner of the gang who killed, raped and murdered in Wismar. And we studied his moves and appease him with a calm surrender whilst we thrived in our suitcase economy.

Read carefully my friend....Chrichlow also opposed universal adult suffrage because it would bring more Indians on the voting roll.

WHAT?  Carib, you full of surprise...this is yet another objective analysis coming from you....didnt think you had it in you banna.

With due respect, you do not fully understand your history.....ethnic groups and organizations were formulated since the arrival of both communities. That separation or different identity carried over to the independence period, so it was easy for the colonials to divide us...we cant just pin the blame on Forbes and Cheddi. Walter Rodney and others have made this point.

1.  The rich and the famous did NOT travel to the USA from Europe. 

2.  Given that Indians in Jamaica are so outnumbered by blacks then they ought to be even more paranoid, and so having a need to galvanize together to protect themselves.  Yet they don't.  Extending your line of argument Indians in Guyana can afford to be clannish, whereas those from Jamaica don't have the numbers to be.

3.  Just ask yourself why the inept PNC, now morphed into APNU get the bulk of this support, even though these people are quick to cuss them out.  Buxton and Linden were total anti PNC strongholds during the Burnham era, yet the mere threat of the PPP turned them into the most fervent PNC strongholds.  Ask yourself why.

Kari you can continue to fool yourself that most Afro Guyanese don't distrust Indians, because of their clannish orientation.  You ought to hear the comments made, and you might be shocked that you know some of those who make them.

You tell me that I must try to understand Indians and how they think.  You need to follow your own advice when it comes to non Indians.

The BGEIA had a stated goal of wanting more Indian indentures to be imported, despite the horrendous conditions under which they worked.

Why?

Because the BGEIA had as its stated goal ethnic domination of Guyana by INDIANS, and so wanted the Indian population to become dominant.

African and colored elites, who already had to wage major battles against the white plantocracy, didn't want to have a new enemy intent in squeezing them out.

It was not obvious in 1917 how many Indians had loyalties to Guyana instead of India.

In fact even now there are sizeable numbers of Guyanese Indians who still root their core identity in India, and don't have the scantest interest in the other ethnic groups which comprise Guyana.

http://www.guyanatimesgy.com/2...rt-of-indo-guyanese/

Then you all want to know why people don't trust many of you.  They didn't in 1917, and they still don't.

Why don't you check and see which other Caribbean country has the degree of ethnic mobilization that Guyana had.

Blacks in Guyana had a problem.  They had to fight the weight of colonial oppression, and they also had to fight the BGEIA, which had a stated goal of Indian domination of Guyana. 

Whereas blacks in the rest of the Caribbean saw self governance and independence as a way to secure their own futures, the paranoia in Guyana was that blacks would wage a battle against colonialism to see groups like the BGEIA using the larger numbers of Indians to seize it.

Blacks in Guyana were ethnically mobilized in a way that they weren't elsewhere in the Caribbean, where mobilization was primarily along class lines.

The cross ethnic alliances were temporary and for specific purposed, but unique to Guyana were intra ethnic class alliances, which didn't exist elsewhere.

From my first post on GNI I was critical of the PNC.  I also openly declared that the Burnham regime was racist.

You wish to paint me as a racist because I have no tolerance for Indian racism, or for the refusal of Indians to discuss THEIR role in fomenting ethnic distrust.  This, even as there is endless discussion of what blacks do to Indians, this becoming especially shrill since May 11th.

There is a narrative in Guyana of "black man bad, so has to apologize, and even Kari and others demanded this, even as they pretend otherwise.

Until you begin to discuss how the ethnically exclusive behavior of Indians, and their obsession of India, even at the expense of developing a Guyanese identity (yes we remember when GUYANESE Indians came out to cheer India against the West Indies), then you aren't really interested in dealing with this issue.  

Reality is that non Indians, and especially blacks, view Indians through this prism,  this forming the basis of their ethnic insecurity dilemma.  And then their noises, and at times actions then form the basis of the Indian insecurity dilemma.

Danyael gave a lengthy analysis of Indo Guyanese attitudes and NOT ONE Indian here discussed the issue with any objectivity.

WRONG.

1.  Africans were hostile to being taxed to bring in Indians, who they saw as competition on the estates.

2.  In the 1880s Indians attacked blacks on estates, because they objected when the planters used them as replacement labor, when the Indians attempted strike action.

3.  There were numerous instances where the white planters instigated black vs. Indian conflict, and in fact one of them loudly boasted of this.  They used each race to ensure control of the other, and distrust became concretized.

The "support" which Critchlow got was because Africans had more experience in mobilizing, and had begun to establish trade unions, and some Indians saw how that could have been beneficial to them.   This was akin to the USA/UK alliance with the USSR to defeat Hitler.

At no point did they subsume their ETHNIC considerations as Indians, for a class based struggle as exploited workers, and this is why the attempt of the PPP, prior to 1955, to foster nationalistic, rather than ethnically based politics was doomed to fail. 

The Africans/colored, in the 50s, looked into the mirror and had visions of a New India on the northern coast of South America, with them being squeezed out. This being the basis of their hostility towards the PPP. This indeed DID happen between 1992 and 2015, so the ethnic paranoia of Indian domination and ethnic exclusion was proven correct.