Guyana's Diversity

I am in Guyana, Georgetown for a couple of days.
It looks like Suriname but it is not. What intrigues me the most is the influence of the Indian culture on the Guyana nation. The food, the music and the Indian religious tradition. I compare of course with my country and although we are promoting our country like 'many cultures who live nice and happy side by side it doesn't melt in to the nation in general. Not this extra flavor on the whole society as in Guyana or also Trinidad. We really kept our cultures apart from others. It didn't integrate nationwide. We look at it , and just pass by. We let it be, don't fight as long as it doesn't come to close. People in Guyana fight yes. And in Trinidad there is also a firm line between the people with Indian ancestors and Negro ancestors. But still they fight for one country, one nation. Here in Guyana i feel something different than Suriname. People feel Guyanese, and Guyana belongs to them. Even though you have firm lines between Negros and Indians, it is for both groups their country. It seem like we in Suriname are missing the feeling of living in a country that really belongs to us.

Diversivty Divides.

So now it's a countdown to the writers in exchange festival, diversity is power, in south africa, 22 day to go!

As for the last couple of months i'm like a hungry child reading everything i can get my hands on about South Africa. Nelson Mandela, his first autobiography and Winnie Mandela, een stuk van mijn ziel (ein stuck meiner seele ging mit ihm). I've subscribed to the thought leader, of the mail & guardian online, for getting a sense of the Africa I’m visiting, what's going on and especially, South Africa post apartheid.

The struggle of the people of South Africa who were against Apartheid and Nelson Mandela's role is for me almost beyond reality. A list of all the banning orders, and imprisonment for forty years! Both Nelson Mandela and Winni Mandela fought for something bigger because it was in fact impossible to have happy personnel live as man and woman, as a family in the South Africa of the white leaders. Diversity was used by people to divide more.. for the benefit of holding to it own ethnic group. I admire the strength of both Nelson Mandela and Winnie Mandela not to get lost in this madness but still , even with all this pain hold on to the idea of unity and a Africa for all people, whites, blacks, colored, communists, socialists.

I'm confronted with diversity daily in my country with its different ethnic groups , cultures and therefore different political parties, different ethnic groups, different religions and traditions, languages and ethnic based broadcasting companies. Bollywood channels, Indonesian TV, Chinese broadcasting, Braz TV (Brazilian TV) . In these last years instead of moving more to a united society where diversity can add to one united community with the energetic diverse vibes we are moving apart and trying to gain power out our own group. Because of our diversity it seems almost unable to develop this country in a way it benefits all the people who live in it. With the indigenous tribes on one hand who don't speak the same language as the people of the cost and the people of the coast are yet even more divided because of their ethnic and cultural background.

Reading about the anti apartheid struggles in South Africa makes me wonder. The power of the Nationalist Party became only stronger using the diversity of groups . More diversity gives parties more power, a tool to suppress, a tool to divide, a tool to gain development only for one particular group, meanwhile suppressing the other.

Diversity divides is my statement of today. And still diversity is the most powerful tool for creative development!