Our existence fixes us with a hyphenated identity

Dear Editor,

The essays appearing in your newspaper over the past few days have looked at the question of identification without reference to the conflicts that we know result from their affirmation.

Which is to say that while I can agree that exclaiming or asserting that one is Indian or African or Afro-Guyanese, IndoGuyanese or simply, Guyanese is hardly an aspect of ‘declaration’ and is more familiarly a question of assertion that is laden with conflicting meanings. Even if, like Moses Nagamootoo did in India, it carries no rejection of any feature of our being, but, more often is intended as an assertion of the worth of element being declared

However, as we know, individuation is from a biological viewpoint, fixed and unchangeable. Hence we are born with DNA characterization that is purely singular, and that our fingerprints define our individual identity in an unmistakable fashion that is unchangeable. Social or racial identification is often laden with signification and changeable.

We may be Indian or Indo-Guyanese, but it goes beyond simple statements. It should be noted that from an epistemological viewpoint, the statements carry values that are indicative, in our mind and thinking, of a value system that is not devoid of hierarchies. Hence, the way our mind works, the Indian or African comes charged with historical and social values that are understood by all and therefore the identity comes fixed in a system of values that add weight and colour to the word used as “self-identification.”

Hence, being Guyanese at an airport in the Caribbean “means” something different from being Guyanese at the airport in Miami or a polling station somewhere in the country.

That is what is important, we are not affirming or declaring simple facts, but participating in the reading of values that are at work in the transaction.

These values including our place in the system of values that are at play or at work in the transaction can be read as an assurance of our belonging or of our rejection of belonging to a stated category of being. The epistemology with which we live and think add fact and judgement to the statement that are understood by the parties involved. And often intended by the declarant as a proud declaration of his belonging to this or that category of person. The truth is, whether we say it or not, our existence fixes us with a hyphenated identity. The “Indian or “African” will refer to genetic attributes, While the Guyanese refers to the multicultural facts of our being. The definition alludes to a complexity that we cannot escape.

But any statement of identity in the modern world comes with the social and historical weight of the identity declared. Akola Thompson’s columns here, when they deal with questions of race and colour reveal the power of their presence in our discourse and life. Whatever we mean, we cannot escape the realization that in the very manner we deal with facts and knowledge, the words have an “epistemological” weight that we cannot avoid. I believe most of us are aware of this.

Yours faithfully, Abu Bakr