Tag Archives: Divisive racist politics

Reflections: America Divided against Itself

22 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by in United States

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I am no stranger to divisive racist politics. My lived experience as a former British subject in what was then British Guiana provides the setting for my debut novel, Under the Tamarind Tree. I witnessed the effectiveness of divisiveness as a weapon for maintaining minority control of a population. When deployed across a nation, it threatens and destroys our relationships with co-workers, neighbors, friends, and even family members. It is now happening within my own nuclear family.

We the people are led—perhaps, brainwashed would be a better word—to believe that our differences as individuals are liabilities for the well-being of our nation. A homogeneous population—in our case, preferably white—would make America great again. What we are never told is that our capitalist economic system thrives on the subjugation of black bodies and those of women, of all colors, making the black woman doubly oppressed.

Of greater import is capital’s subjugation of non-human life—caught and sold, cut and re-shaped and sold, habitats burned for expansion, killed to extinction. Mother Nature is now under great stress; breakdown across numerous ecosystems is underway. Even the overheated heavens lash out with fire and fury.

Bloated from insatiable greed with the spoils of nations worldwide, now depleted, and struggling to breathe, capital returns home for its last stand. Those standing in the way of its recovery must be silenced or crushed. Divisiveness works well as a vaccine to subdue growing opposition to capital’s lethal venom and demands for equality and justice for all.

Capital does not care about our financial distress, pain, and losses. Capital does not care that we are losing our loved ones in the battle against the coronavirus. Capital only cares about its own survival. Capital never concedes. “Liberate the economy!” is its call to arms.

On this Thanksgiving Day, I give thanks to my American brothers and sisters who risk their lives on the frontlines to care for our loved ones infected with Covid-19. While we the people are divided about the sacrifices essential to combat this invisible enemy, those on the frontlines are battered and exhausted, physically and emotionally. Many have lost their lives.

May your Thanksgiving Day be the best it can be during a pandemic.

Book Release – Under the Tamarind Tree: A Novel

12 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by in Under the Tamarind Tree: A Novel by Rosaliene Bacchus

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Tamarind Tree with Fruits
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

 

The day is finally here. Today is the day I send my debut novel out into the world. It has been a long journey: four years in its conception and another five years in failing to find it a home. During the years of rejection from the guardians of the publishing world, I held onto the hope that Under the Tamarind Tree would enter the world when its time had come. Guyana, the setting for the novel, is now facing a constitutional crisis. In my adopted homeland, divisive racist politics is becoming the norm. Across our planet, gang violence and never-ending wars are driving families from their ancestral homes.

At the heart of Under the Tamarind Tree is the loss and pain that violence brings into our lives. In the United States, mass shootings by lone gunmen are devastating our communities, with little to no response from our law makers. The life of the protagonist, Richard Cheong, is changed forever when his younger brother, then eight years old, was shot to death under a tamarind tree. For Richard, the tamarind tree—a vengeful judge—becomes the personification of his guilt for not keeping his younger brother safe. His inconsolable mother’s death, shortly thereafter, had compounded his guilt. Her spirit haunted him.

Sometimes, she called out his name in the quiet of the night while he stretched out in his Berbice-chair listening to music. She often visited him in his dreams, drenched and shivering. Her chocolate-brown hair, caked with mud, draped down her back to her waist. She drowned him in her grief. (Prologue 1) Continue reading →

Guyana: Let’s have a ‘One Guyana Peace Concert’ and a ‘Day of Prayer’ Before the Elections!

29 Monday Jul 2019

Posted by in Guyana

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COMMENTARY By Dr. Dhanpaul Narine
The West Indian Magazine, July 27, 2019
Reprinted with permission of the author

 

Some may think that the idea is outrageous or even downright crazy. But we need to allay the fears of Guy­anese, to ease the tension, and show that we can work, sing and pray to­gether. We need a ‘One Guyana Peace Concert and a Day of Prayer’ and we need it before the elections. Both events should be non-political and aim to celebrate Guyana as a peaceful nation.

The daily vitriol on social media, from peo­ple that live thousands of miles away from Guy­ana, is bereft of peace or harmony. The online posts stir up hate and call on people to go to war. But Guyanese know bet­ter. They know that at the end of the day the races depend on each other for their survival. They know that we are inter­locked by economics and history and we can’t do without each other. Elections bring out the worse in us but isn’t time that we put aside the hate and look at each other as Guyanese first?

Take a walk at the business places. You will see people buying and selling freely without re­gard to race or ethnicity. In fact, the races will tell you that without each other they can’t do busi­ness. Their livelihoods depend on one another. In Vergenoegen, where I was raised, many busi­nesses were owned by Afro and Indo-Guya­nese. We supported each other without the slight­est regard to race.

When it came to cul­tural events we joined hands and celebrated. In fact, many Afro-Guya­nese knew the rituals of the Hindu wedding cer­emony better than Indi­ans in the village. The people took pride in the achievements of the chil­dren and we looked out for each other. If only we can get back to the days of mutual coopera­tion and respect and treat each other as brothers and sisters rather than as enemies.

The politicians would like to see enmity be­tween the races because they become relevant when the society is di­vided. A divided society preys on differ­ences and hate. After years of di­viding the nation, it is time to wake up and tell the politicians to put aside the hate. It is time to call out the politicians and urge them to act in the interests of the people. [Emphasis mine.] Continue reading →

Divisive Racist Politics: Will America Survive?

21 Sunday Jul 2019

Posted by in Guyana, United States

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“Send Her Back” – US President’s Campaign Rally – North Carolina/USA – July 17, 2019
Photo Credit: HuffPost, YouTube Video

 

I know about divisive racist politics. I have experienced it up close in Guyana, the land of my birth—one of the “shithole countries” that our president loves to denigrate. Divisive racist politics has crippled my birthplace over the past fifty-three years since its birth as an independent nation. As a multiracial woman, I know firsthand the ways in which hate, rancor, fear, and distrust can splinter families, communities, and relationships in public spaces, such as our schools and workplaces.

Caught up in what Guyanese call “the racial disturbances”—during the years leading up to independence in May 1966, between the two major population groups of descendants of African slaves and Indian indentured laborers—I became a marginalized citizen. Beginning in adolescence, I learned to navigate the racial minefields, to dodge and take the blows.

In my debut novel, Under the Tamarind Tree, to be released in the coming months, I tackle the roots of Guyana’s divisive racist politics and its impact on the lives of my racially diverse characters. You can learn more about my motivations for setting out on this literary journey in my article “The Making of Under the Tamarind Tree.”

While the chant rose to “send her back,” during a recent presidential campaign rally, America’s transnational corporations are sucking Earth’s natural resources from all those “broken and crime infested places from which they [non-white immigrants] came.”

Continue reading →