Wid turn up nose and jigga toes
On his head black pepper grows.”
In Trinidad, according to a friend of mine school aged children, would say,
Coolie man come fi roti,
Roti Dun, Mash potato, Mash potato
Half past One.
Black come fi Roti,
Roti Dun, Mash Potato, Mash potato
Half past One.
And
When di nigga pull di trigger
Ole’ man coolie run.
Where does this all this come from, viewpoints such as this one given by an Afro-Trinidadian as to why the East Indians are more socially mobile are reasons why little children think up of these cruel songs to sing to each other:
“Black man is falling. When the Black Man used to wear feathers in his cap, the coolie was eating water-rice. Black man used to say, “Go way, you water-rice coolie!” Today the coolie think they are big people. After one time will be a next. Today is time for coolie. I don’t mind cause the Lord say, ” In the last days, race will rise against race, and nation will rise against nation, and there will be wars and rumors of wars.” (Horowitz, 1971)
In Guyana and Trinidad class can be divided as such:
An upper class of large businessmen and large planters. An upper middle class of professionals, owners of medium-sized businesses, college levels educators, corporate managers, and senior bureaucrats in the public sector and leaders of voluntary organizations. A lower middle class of small businessmen, primary and secondary school teachers, white collar workers (in private business, in civil administration, and in the parastatals), skilled workers, and owners of medium-sized farms. A rural lower class of small peasants, agricultural laborers, seasonal and short-term migrant laborers and the rural unemployed. An urban lower class of unskilled and semi-skilled urban laborers and the substantial number of urban unemployed. Few Whites, Mulattos and the majority, East Indians make up the more successful upper half. The lower shared by blacks. (Hintzen, 1989)
Guyana and Trinidad are countries small in size and population and thus their economies are mostly based on exports and producing a small amount of products. This results in a limitation on the efforts of economic control. What make them differ from the more industrialized nations? The answer to this question explains much of their current economic woes. All countries, small and big are subject to the effects of outside economic fluctuations. The difference is that the larger more industrialized countries have the ability to manage or attempt to manage any economic fluctuations. Small countries like Guyana and Trinidad are dependent on limited exports, mostly agricultural and small products. In Guyana and Trinidad the existence race based politics and poor economic policies led to the breakdown of economic system. Guyana is just after Haiti on the list of poorest countries in the Caribbean, with high levels of unemployment, and double-digit inflation. Trinidad is by no means a wealthy country but it has faired better than Guyana due to its oil deposits, tourism appeal and it’s automobile manufacturing. In Trinidad under the PNM government the beneficiaries of jobs, services, facilities, loans and housing were the African masses who supported the party, the same policy the PNC practiced in Guyana. Nevertheless, the masses still suffer in both countries. This is a reason for the mass exodus of immigrants from both countries to the United States and Europe. Here one again effects the other; this has lead to the lack of manpower and brainpower to facilitate any kind of resurgence in the economies of two countries.
A survey conducted by a graduate student of Black and Indian schoolteachers and other educational personnel in Guyana and Trinidad produced the following conclusion:
The Most Indians want a state in which cultural pluralism will be an accepted norm, in which they can be both Guyanese or Trinidadian and Indian. Africans tend to acknowledge only one cultural standard as congruent with Guyanese or Trinidadian. Identity, and also do not accept the legitimacy of a continued uniquely Indian identity. The two groups share the same state, but have very different conceptions of the nation. (Baksh, 1999)
This can only give a poor outcast for the future of the two countries; solidarity is a far away dream.
When I look in the mirror I ask myself, Guyanese, Indian what am I? I landed in Guyana by accident. Thinking of the question you posed to me in my outline, am I ethnocentric? I think my view is warped because of my life experiences in the United States, where it is no longer important what race I am, but essentially that I am not Caucasian. In comparison to others while most see themselves by race first, I see myself as simply, Guyanese. People both Indian and black in Guyana and Trinidad fail to acknowledge how similar they truly are and only focus on their differences and that is said. They share similar cultures, celebration of Carnival, foods, and customs.
In these young countries there is a great fear of cultural domination: each group wants to assert the benefits of their own culture. When public figures and public policy proceed to shape the national identity the result is who will control who and who the nation will belong to. While the historical struggle for political power is seen as the primary cause for the bad race relations, another cause should be examined, the lack of economic resources. The eternal conflict over whom has everything and who doesn’t have anything. It would seem that if the economies of these countries could be rejuvenated and enough resources could be available so that all groups could be satisfied without favoring one group over the other, this ethnic conflict could possibly be improved. Groups should be left to intermingle and develop their own solutions to their own problems. Although the cultural structure of the Indian and African people might appear to be distinctive, there are more common values held between the two than appears at first sight. For instance, the both accept the British social system and most of its values, sadly they accept it as being superior to their own national cultural values. Race and ethnicity will infinitely continue to be central to the Caribbean definition of self. Ironically, nearly all the leaders of the new nations of the Caribbean came to power on platforms of social justice and condemnation of any form of racial discrimination.