VishMahabir posted:caribny posted:VishMahabir posted:Demerara_Guy posted:A SALUTE TO INDIAN GUYANESE
May 15, 2019 , Kaieteur, https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...-to-indian-guyanese/
By Donald Ramotar, Former President
Donald Ramotar is no historian like Rodney and Jagan.
I once did a term paper on this topic, out of curiosity, a year ago. I think Donald made some fundamental mistakes....maybe the historians here can correct me...
1) It was not the BGEIA that first advocated for universal adult suffrage. There were other organizations and political leaders like Critchlow and other African leaders who formed the first labor union (I believe) and who advocated for adult suffrage. The BGEIA, and later the PPP took on this challenge.
2) Ramotar paints a history of the race problem as if the Europeans are to be blamed for perpetuating this problem in Guyana. Thats what idiotic Marxists do...he ignores the 28 years and the 23 years when both the PNC and PPP perpetuated the problem and neither party mde serious attempts to solve the problem.
3) He provides a bias view of history which paints the PPP and its leaders as the saviors of Guyana...and the PNC totally to be blamed for the current problems between Indos and Afros...
jes my 2 cents....
This fecal nonsense written by Ramotar just shows why I call the PPP the Indo Nazi. It confirms that when 4 years ago they called themselves the "coolie people party" (Rohee confirmed this based on comments made by Jagdeo) this is their thinking.
1. The BGEIA was an elitist Indian organization that wanted dominance of Guyana by encouraging more Indian indentures to arrive. They painted lies attempting to hide the harsh conditions that indentures lived under as India wanted to ban this based on reports of adverse working and living conditions. The BGEIA didn't care a gif about Indian indentures aside from wanting to use them as they attempted to dominate Guyana.
2. While Critchlow started by helping workers in the Afro dominated menial jobs in GT and elsewhere he soon began to help the estate workers to establish their own trade unions. No credit given to him for that. So bad that the PPP even wanted the Critchlow educational institution to fail by not funding it.
3. Anyone reading his piece of fecal racism would think that the elites in GT entertaining themselves to the exclusion of others were all Africans instead of the tiny mainly Indian elites. One would think that Africans didn't suffer all manner of abuse from all the post independence political parties, and therefore as bad (if not worse off) than the Indian population.
But the PPP is a Indian Rights group so I expect no better from them. They will sell blacks snake oil, and spread panic about blacks to Amerindians as they know that they cannot win anymore just based on the Indian vote.
But the PPP is now as racist as they once accused ROAR of being. It turns out that ROAR won that battle in the end. The PPP doesn't even pretend to be multi ethnic in its interests since 2015.
Ramotar screams about Africans being made to feel "unjustifiably" (so he says) of the PPP. Why wouldn't they when they read his lies and the fact that he shyts of the black population. No attempt at balance. No attempt to reflect that maybe Guyana has perspectives diverse as its ethnic groups and geographic regions and social classes.
But its good that he wrote this piece of Hindutva drivel, just in case anyone thought that the PPP was trying to change its hostility to blacks.
I am reading two books right now...
Rodney's History of the Guyanese Working People and Seecharan's Mother India...so my responses below are based on those two sources and what little I know about Guyana's history...
I make the following points...
1. The BGEIA was elitist, yes. But there was no other way that an Indo organization that represented Indians could have been formed without the elitists. Many of these so called elites were from rural areas who traveled to GT (and abroad) in search of opportunities. Many who were educated or returned from abroad settled in GT. The program of the BGEIA was broad and they made attempts to unite, protect and serve the interests of all Indos, in the city and the rural areas. For example, the founders of the BGEIA were from Berbice. Its program to register Indians to vote and fight for universal adult suffrage (for those over 21, elimination of property and literacy requirements, etc) were genuinely designed to help all Indians, just like African, Portuguese, and Chinese organizations that existed at the time.
To suggest that the BGEIA was racist is simplistic and ignores the broader goals of the organization. Its goals mirrored those of the League of Colored People (of which Burnham was a supporter).
2. Nathaniel Critchlow was indeed the father of trade unionism. However, according to Seecharan, whatever assistance Critchlow provided to sugar workers in the rural areas was limited in scope. He concentrated his efforts in Georgetown organizing the stevedores, ship workers, hospital workers, etc. He does not have a strong record assisting sugar workers or rural Indians.
In fact, some would also consider Critchlow a hypocrite. All his life he supported universal adult suffrage. However, he took a 360 degree turn and opposed it, giving a ridiculous reason as to why. Critchlow opposed universal adult suffrage when he realized that too many Indians were entering the political space and were becoming eligible to vote. He felt a greater number of Indos who could vote was a threat to Afros.
3. I dont disagree that the PPP is a de facto Indian organization. But we cant act like the other major organization, the PNC, is a multiracial organization either.
4. I would not place too much faith on what Ramotar is saying. He is a simpleton, a Marxist ideologue, and probably the worst President Guyana has has. His "analysis" is biased in favor of the PPP.
:In the time of Critchlow, voting was not carried out in the entire colony, only in GT. Mainly between the Coloreds, Putagees and Negro elites of GT. The slogan was vote for your own, Stopped short of "kind."
