Empathy is vital if the ethnic unrest in Guyana and other conflicts in the Caribbean are to become manageable.
This was the message University of Warwick delegate, Kampta Karran, delivered at the continuation of the International Conference on "Governance, Conflict Analysis and Conflict Re-solution" at Le Meridien Pegasus Hotel.
Apart from urging delegates to "feel each other's pain" he added that Guyana's ethnic conflict had been amplified by the fear that African youths were being wiped out by an alleged death squad coupled with anti-Indian violence in the form of brutal robberies.
Although entitlement claims and improper distribution of scarce resources also served to complicate the dilemma, Karran noted that ethnic conflict encompassed more than material needs since ethnic groups were known to invest their money and resources into defeating and controlling other ethnic groups.
He remarked that the late PNCR Leader Desmond Hoyte vowed to make the country ungovernable [ please note: link provided by LOSP web site ] and the late President Dr. Cheddi Jagan's `bottom of the ladder' [ please note: link provided by LOSP web site ] comment on Africans did not help. The media had also played a part in fanning the flames through sensationalising sensitive issues. "Thus, responsible politicians are at the helm of this."
How to resolve this lies in equal participation in the public domain, protection of ethnic identity and heritage and the right to control the destiny of one's own group.
"People have a right to defend their heritage but at the same time, they have an obligation to respect and assist others who are [ethnically] different to maintain and develop their culture."
Both University of Guyana Lecturer, Aubrey Norton and Leader of the Rise, Organise and Rebuild Guyana Movement (ROAR), Ravi Dev contended that Guyana's ethnic problems were systemic and had their roots in the "zero sum nature" of the Westminster/Whitehall political system.
Governance in Guyana, argued Norton, was state-centred rather than society-centred thus its present political structure accentuated ethnic insecurity.
Institutions were needed which would provide everyone with the opportunity to participate in decision making, Norton suggested.
He added that the country's ethnic problems were fuelled by the emphasis on state allocation of resources and election related tension.
"The major conflict to be resolved in Guyana is the ethno-political rivalry between political adversaries in a society in which a democratic culture is either absent or in its rudimentary stage..."
Norton said while good governance could attenuate the local ethnic situation, it could not resolve it. Therefore, a complete reversal of Guyana's political culture embodied in the concept of power sharing was necessary.
Dev had his doubts about power sharing, and repeated his view that a federal approach allowed the dominant ethnic groups in each of the respective `states' to be adequately represented in the police force, army and other key public institutions.
In his address, UG Lecturer Frederick Kissoon focused on African extremism and said examples of this frightening phenomenon were evident in a "certain emotional approach to political discourse, in which violent propaganda, race hate advocacy, extra-parliamentary machinations and psychotic violence form the agenda for African-based organisations to openly seek to remove the PPP government that they consider discriminatory, racist, corrupt, incestuous and beyond the politics of compromise."
He said African extremism was exhibited in the post-1997 ideology of the PNC and the change in Desmond Hoyte after he lost those elections.
"The violent and racist advocacy of the PNC-aligned television station HBTV Channel 9, the African response to the Buxton conspiracy and Keane Gibson's book `The Cycle of Racial Oppression in Guyana' [and] the new, racially infused, political culture of the Working People's Alliance" further complicates the situation, Kissoon said.
He said the embrace of the killers in Buxton would remain the lowest point in political discourse in the history of this country, marking the merger of criminality and politics that perhaps had changed the political landscape in ways yet to be apparent.