On Building a Nation: `For My People Everywhere...' By Festus L. Brotherson, Jr. Guyana Chronicle February 18, 2001 I write this essay, "For my people everywhere, singing their... songs repeatedly, praying their prayers nightly, bending their knees humbly, lending their strength to the years, never gaining, never reaping, never knowing and never understanding..." why progress, an end to poverty or, simply put, the achievement of development is so elusive. This is the forlornness of daily life that the citation from Roses and Revolution addresses. It captures battered hopes after hard work, aborted expectations and unfulfilled promises. It captures Guyana. Nation building is just not successful. But it is achievable? In a globalised world, building a nation is a most difficult challenge for the best leadership skills anywhere. Even with genuine efforts, there is more likelihood of failure rather than success. And when significant progress occurs, there is always the possibility of unraveling by fate or the contumacious machinations of despots, or both. Thus, quality of leadership matters more than ever today in statecraft. Integrity, rectitude of character, abiding respect for human rights and selfless commitment to tangible, society-wide progress divorced from narcissistic tendencies are all indispensable virtues. Next month, on March 19, Guyanese will choose which party and leader has these virtues, and then try to resume peaceful pursuit of the often violently interrupted goal of nation building. A Stabroek News editorial of February 15, 2001 on "Building a Nation," correctly pointed to an important requirement of nation building, viz., the ever presence of a core of skilled citizens for whom living abroad is not a consideration on their part by choice. Not only are such skilled persons necessary, but also they can contribute by becoming leaders and pursuing the development of a cohesive state. This was a part of Sir Arthur Lewis' vision when he conceived of development requirements many decades ago. But, there remain more challenges to nation building. Some are unrelated to whether a committed pool of nationalists stays put or emigrates. For Third World nations, globalisation is itself one such challenge if not an actual impediment. Samuel P. Huntington found that political conflicts around the world, over values and resources (the main stuff of all political endeavour), are increasingly betweencivilisations rather than among nation states. This emphasises a paradigm shift that now underscores how the nation-state, as we once defined it, is changing in fundamental ways even as Third World states, using old perceptions of reality and norms, still struggle just to become viable nations. My finding is that human democratic imperatives, which are now a worldwide groundswell phenomenon thanks to globalisation imperatives, are constantly colliding with the march of advanced technological capabilities that also derive from globalisation. This creates a serious area of new conflict where people are resisting the growing necessity of compromise that entails giving up some fundamental democratic freedoms in order to protect others, e.g., free speech and privacy rights. This dynamic is more obvious in the advanced world. If those nations face challenges of sustaining nationhood based on old democratic norms, one can only imagine what Third World states face since they are still "in the process of nation building." They still grapple with nation building objectives in a time warp as if the world has stood still. Far from it, the world has rocketed to speeds of functioning that dramatically have shrunk time and space through globalisation and continue to impact in brand new ways of etiology and epistemology regarding issues of humanity's essence and consciousness. If nation building could not be achieved in the earlier, slower-paced, more predictable pre-globalisation era, how likely is success in the globalisation and, eventually, the post-globalisation eras? I believe we will witness organised dissolution of state power, e.g., on sovereignty, in some internationally mandated form which, by the way, is already happening. There might even be corporate takeover of collapsing states due to their growing inability to manage their affairs thereby fueling international instabilities and becoming burdensome. All of this makes the point that as the nation state is itself under major flux both from within its own borders and from outside, nation building is moving farther and farther away into the horizon and away from reality and/or relevance. These occurrences are likewise unrelated to whether or not a nation is able to retain a core pool of nationalists who do not emigrate. In the Caribbean, we face other special challenges to nation building that involve culture and pragmatic tendencies. Whenever we speak of Caribbean culture (or Guyanese culture), we are really invoking a vision rather than actual belief that there does exist cohesive elements of traditions, experiences, belief systems, etc., that are wholly indigenous and that constitute a real culture. The Caribbean is a strange dynamic polyglot of peoples all of whom - at least the overwhelming majority - are without native roots. Sidney Mintz found that no other region of the Third World has been hammered into such an amalgam of disjointedness by the colonial experience and other factors as the Caribbean. And Eric Hobbsbawn described the area as, "...a curious terrestrial space station from which the fragments of various races, torn from the worlds of their ancestors and aware both of their origins and the impossibility of returning to them, can watch the remainder of the world with unaccustomed detachment." That sort of "detachment" no longer exists, thanks to globalisation which has concretised even more disadvantageous relationships of necessity with the wider world. More than that, George Lamming long ago pointed to the key hubris in the Caribbean person relative to culture: "Colonialism is the very basis of the West Indian's cultural awareness... A foreign or absent Mother culture has always cradled his judgment." This truth is an inhibitor of distinctive cultural evolution. Of course, some would argue that the same feature of fragility places a firm stamp on a kind of culture that we do, in fact, have. Again, consider the lack of indigenousness. The true natives were the Caribs and Arawaks. They and their culture were annihilated by Spanish conquerors. Abraham Lowenthal and others tell this story rather chillingly. This too has made the Caribbean "a terrestrial space station" of damning insecurities. As a direct response to such conditions, emigration has emerged as a safety release valve that prevents revolution by giving Caribbean peoples a way out of stagnancy, and a way forward for progress. But let us, for a moment, say that there is a Caribbean culture albeit fragile. Is it not strange that persons in the business of promoting it cannot earn a livelihood by depending on support bases in the Caribbean but must, instead, journey outside of the region often? Reggae depends on export and travels. So does steel band or pan music. And so do our celebrated writers. The committed core of essential non-emigrants rarely come from these groups. More positively, we do have legends and myths that can rival any elsewhere. These are essential cultural facilitators that provide hope. And hope we must that it is still possible to be successful at nation building. Meanwhile, out outside the region, throngs of sometimes frustrated foreign Caribbean nationals easily relate to another patriotic lament in Roses and Revolution: "O patria mia... O native land, never to see you again..." This group as well as "my people...never gaining, never reaping can contribute to nation building. Neither should be made to suffer from ill-conceived restrictive policies. Follow the goings-on in Guyana in Guyana Today If you do not see the 'Guyana: Land of Six Peoples' drop-down menu on the left then please click here to enter through the front door which will give you additional options and information.