Guyana Elections on BBC: The World; Westminster System versus Power Sharing

I just got done watching a BBC World blurb on Guyana, and the upcoming elections. Part of what was being discussed was whether the Westminster System was a system that worked in a society with distinct race lines - though, as can be expected, these lines are diminishing through mixing.

This immediately caught my interest, so I spread the word by email. In ratio of race, Trinidad and Tobago is quite similar, and falls under the Westminster system as well, though I don't recall ever seeing the violence that has happened after Guyanese elections. The BBC showed footage of burning buildings after an election. I've never heard of that in Trinidad during my lifetime, but when the Caribbean diaspora say they will not come home, it's apparent that something is very wrong. That's the difference between diaspora and brain drain.

The BBC World show was rather short, but it hit the key points. The editor of Starbroek News was interviewed, and he thought that the Westminster system did not work well for Guyana. Others disagreed; Bharrat Jagdeo, the President, didn't think that power sharing was a viable solution. Of course, when one is in power, one doesn't wish to share it - but he made valid points along those lines. Someone whose name I missed said something I agree with - that he problem isn't necessarily racial, that it is socio-economic. The show itself ended with students being educated about other cultures, and a hope for the future.

What isn't said is that both African descendants and Indian descendants tend to be parts of orphan cultures; pseudopods of culture that were truncated by distance and time. Africans who came down as slaves were basically robbed of their culture by their masters; what they kept were the things that they could remember and pass on - but slaves were not kept together based on tribe, so a lot of mixing of cultures happened there as well.

Indian culture suffered similarly, though to a much lesser degree. There are many Hindu people in the region, but not one Swami seems to be on record for coming down on the ships with the indentured servants. There are members of my father's side of the family that disagree with my perspective, but the truth is that the 'Indian' culture of the Caribbean isn't the same as that of India. Some try to emulate it, but are unable to emulate it without a context. The Indian descendants were allowed more ties to India under the British than the African descendants. At the end of the day, some things were kept, some things have suffered cultural inbreeding, and some things have been lost.

I suppose that despite being the descendants of India, the culture of many Indians in the region is only derivative of Indian culture - just as 'African culture' in the region is derivative of African culture. Both 'Indian' and 'African' culture are complex things; a culture could change within walking distance in either Africa or India (and from what I understand, it still does). The arguments of these 'cultures' are quickly lost on me; there are cultures here in the region but to mistake them to be one and the same with that of India and Africa seems like folly to me. In the end, people believe what they want to, and defend it as strongly as they believe it.

Perhaps the difference between Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago is Forbes Burnham; a dictator during the 1970s in Guyana - but there are some in Trinidad and Tobago who would compare Burnham to Dr. Eric Williams. Perhaps the difference is money; Trinidad and Tobago is far richer now because of oil. Perhaps it's the size of the population. What Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago have in common are a ratio of races; in all other parts of the Caribbean, people of Indian descent are considered minorities - and there are Indians throughout the region.

Does the Westminster System work for Guyana or Trinidad and Tobago? To an extent, I believe that they do - but it is also apparent that the Westminster Systems in place, in practice, have a lot to be improved upon. It's sort of obvious that when elections are violent, something is wrong. Of course, violence in between says much the same.

Power sharing doesn't seem to be much of a solution, because at the core the problem is who should be sharing the power versus who people believe should be sharing power... instead of considering democracy as a solution. Electing dictators is trendy business, though, so let's see what happens.