Tag Archives: Politics

Divisive Racist Politics: Will America Survive?

21 Sunday Jul 2019

Posted by in Guyana, United States

≈ 63 Comments

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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.”

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Woman in Distress

21 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by in Social Injustice, United States

≈ 11 Comments

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Bradley Manning at Fort MeadeBradley Manning: Integrity on Trial
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk

 

Forgive me. I scrapped three attempts of writing this week’s blog article. They were rants of a woman in distress. You deserve better.

In distress over corporate wealth that renders our government dysfunctional.

In distress over corporate greed, crippling us with debt and destroying our planet.

In distress at the extent and invasiveness of our surveillance state that stretches beyond our borders.

In distress at state governments dominated by conservative males intent on policing the female reproductive system and criminalizing women.

In distress over the racial bias of our judicial system that acquitted an armed vigilante who pursued and killed an innocent and unarmed, seventeen-year-old, black male.

In distress at our lack of compassion for the dispossessed, homeless, hungry, poor, and sick.

I find solace in the knowledge that goodness and integrity exist. I hold on to the hope that our virtue will triumph over the chaos of unrestrained power and greed.

I ponder the words of wisdom of Lao-tzu:

If you realize that all things change,
There is nothing you will try to hold on to.
If you aren’t afraid of dying,
There is nothing you can’t achieve.

 I soothe my troubled mind with the recital of Psalm 37:

Do not worry about the wicked,
Do not envy those who do wrong.
Quick as the grass they whither,
Fading like the green in the field…

 

 

Protests in Brazil: The people have awakened

23 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in Brazil, Economy and Finance, Social Injustice

≈ 9 Comments

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Protests in Brazil - Fortaleza - Ceara - 20 June 2013Protests in Brazil – Fortaleza – Ceará – 20 June 2013
Source: tribunadonorte.com.br

 

This past week, the magnitude of the protests across Brazil took me by surprise. On June 6th, I had paid little attention to news about protests in São Paulo against a 20-cent rise in bus and train fares. That happened often in Fortaleza and other Brazilian cities during the sixteen years me and my sons lived in Brazil, and in subsequent years.

My attention was riveted on events taking place in Fortaleza. On Facebook, I followed plans for a mass demonstration against violence. Already a grave concern when we lived in Fortaleza. On June 13th, over three thousand protestors crammed major streets, displaying red-painted hands. Their slogan: Fortaleza Apavorada: Basta! (Fortaleza Terrified: Enough!)

In the meantime, over 1,800 miles down south in São Paulo, the number of demonstrators in the streets had grown from 500 to 5,000. Vandals created havoc among peaceful demonstrations, forcing the police to take action. Their indiscriminate use of pepper-spray and rubber bullets on peaceful demonstrators drove more people to the streets.

By June 17th, years of pent up frustrations were unleashed. Thousands more swarmed the streets in São Paulo and in other cities across Brazil: Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Vitória, Curitiba, Salvador, Maceió, Fortaleza, Belém, and others. (See Veja for up-to-date Brazilian news on the protests.)

Although the Governor of São Paulo and the Mayor of the capital rescinded the 20-cent increase in bus and train fares on June 19th, the people continued to fill the streets. By evening the next day, over one million demonstrators clamored in eighty cities across the nation.

I struggled to understand this sudden and sustained revolt. Over two decades now, Brazilians have been bearing up with all kinds of abuses and depravations caused by corrupt politicians, cronyism, and impunity. They found ways – o jeitinho brasileiro, they called it – of working around and coping with corruption, inflation, high taxes, inadequate public health and education, poor infrastructure, violence, and more.

Why now?

The economic boom over the part ten years lifted thousands out of poverty and expanded the middle-class. More people working. More people consuming goods and services. More money in the pockets of corrupt officials and the elite. Greater stress on public health services. Greater demand for a decent education. Greater demand for more and improved infrastructure.

With billions being spent – and pocketed – on constructing stadiums and accommodations for hosting the FIFA World Cup 2014 and the Olympics 2016, I suppose something had to give. For an indignant population suffering from abuse and depravations, the 20-cent increase in bus and train fares was the last straw. Basta!

You, the Brazilian people, have awakened. President Dilma Rousseff has heard your demands for change. She is ready to receive leaders of peaceful demonstrations. Are you prepared for the task ahead?

The world is watching. I’m a Brazilian of the heart. I’m rooting for you.

Sou brasileira de coração. Estou torcendo por você.

The Only Path to Serenity

19 Sunday May 2013

Posted by in United States

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Frankenstorm Sandy - October 2012Frankenstorm Sandy – NOAA/NASA GOES Image – 30 October 2012
Source: http://www.livescience.com

Negativity is bad for your health, a doctor once told me. And my life has had no shortage of negativity. So, to maintain a healthy, positive outlook, I start my day with a Psalm from the Bible and end it with a chapter from Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching. Chapter nine offered the following advice to attain serenity.

            Fill your bowl to the brim
            and it will spill.
            Keep sharpening your knife
            and it will blunt.
            Chase after money and security
            and your heart will never unclench.
            Care about people’s approval
            and you will be their prisoner.
 
            Do your work, then step back.
            The only path to serenity.

            Tao Te Ching, A New English Version by Stephen Mitchell, 1988.

I won’t lie. This last week, my bowl brimmed over with frustration at the latest scandals – pertaining to Benghazi, the IRS, and the Associated Press – brought against our President by dissatisfied senators in the opposition party. A faction is calling for his impeachment. The more I learn about American democracy, the less I understand. Instead of tackling the problems crippling our nation, our elected representatives spend most of their time obstructing the decision-making process.

Seasoned politicians seem to have learned how to flow with the current of dissent to get some work done. Perhaps, experience has taught them that obstructionists who keep sharpening their knives become irrelevant over time. Sadly, we the people suffer the consequences of their inaction.

Chasing after money and security is the privilege of the rich. With federal budget sequester cuts of about $85.4 billion, slated for this year, austerity is reserved for the low-paid, underpaid, unemployed, and retired working class. Money is scarce. Insecurity is a way of life.

Our recent failure to pass common sense gun control laws exposed senators who are prisoners of campaign donors, stifling their freedom to act in the interest of their constituents. Disapproval would end their political career.

Doing what is morally right takes courage. We have to be prepared to stand alone, to lose friendships, to lose our job. Shunned by our peers.

While our senators played political games of positioning for future elections, instead of doing their jobs, the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere broke a three-million-year record (NOAA Release, 10 May 2013). The average daily level has now surpassed 400 parts per million. More calamities, like Frankenstorm Sandy, await us.

Lao-tzu said, Do your work, then step back. Our President appears to have a head start in this regard. Some political commentators accuse him of lacking forcefulness in handling the latest scandals. Who knows the minds of our leaders?

We must remain engaged in these matters that govern and affect our lives. We must each continue to do our part to bring about the changes we need. One step at a time. One day at a time.

With the prospects of greater austerity, insecurity, and calamity, I will definitely need a good dose of serenity.

Guyana: Violence in Conflict Resolution

21 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Economy and Finance, Guyana

≈ 8 Comments

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Excessive Use of Force by Police – Guyana

Source: http://www.barbadosgazette.com

 

Guyanese continue to use violence to resolve persistent political, socio-economic conflicts facing our nation. Roman Catholic Bishop Francis Alleyne, in an opinion column published in Demerara Waves on 17 October 2012, wrote: “There has to be another way…to address honestly the sharp disagreements and roiling controversies that plague (the nation).” He called on all Guyanese to “share in the uplifting and the progress of this nation of ours…in a spirit of genuine commitment and steadfast dedication…”

The World Health Organization defines violence as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.”

I grew up and came to adulthood during a period of continual violence when, as a nation, we maimed and killed each other in our fight for independence from Great Britain and in the turbulent years following independence. We secured our homes from kick-down-the-door bandits with wrought iron grills and guard dogs. My psyche has especially been scarred by the rape of young girls and women in Wismar (May 1964); the burning of the home of the Abraham family, killing the father and seven of his nine children ages 6 to 19 (June 1964); the killing of Father Bernard Darke SJ (July 1979); and the assassination of Dr. Walter Rodney (June 1980). You, too, may have your own scars from violence propagated against you, your family or neighbors. Guyana’s rum culture – a legacy of our colonial past as sugar and rum producers – perpetuates the violence in our homes and beyond.

Somewhere along our journey in nation-building, we learned that violence is the best solution for resolving our differences. Violence begets fear. Fear begets control. Control begets power. Power begets omnipotence.  Omnipotence begets entitlement. The omnipotent plutocrat, oligarch or dictator lives in a bubble of his own creation. He loses sight of the real world and of his inherent frailties as a human being.

Instigated by excessive force and brutality of the police and hired thugs, collective violence for conflict resolution between factions of government destroys property; reduces production; hinders the movement of people and goods; disrupts business transactions; scares visitors, tourists, and investors; drives away local talent and skills; and deters involvement by qualified professionals in the Diaspora. Ultimately, violence adversely affects our economy and our place in the regional and world economies. Violence prevents us from moving forward.

I agree with Bishop Alleyne: “There has to be another way.”

The World Health Organization makes the following recommendations for preventing collective violence: reduce poverty, inequality, and access to weapons; accountability from decision-makers; and government adherence to human rights.

In the case of the “roiling controversies that plague” Guyana, I believe that the ruling party must first look beyond the bubble and acknowledge that there is need for change. Only then can our government and its people work together towards bringing about change.