The International Decade of People of African Descent Assembly – Guyana (IDAPADA-G) has joined the United Nation (UN) in calling for the elimination of racial discrimination and racism around the world and in Guyana.
In a press release on Thursday, the local body said that while it is common knowledge that Guyana – a nation of six peoples — is troubled with racism and racial discrimination, not much has been done to address the deep issues head on. For clarity, IDPADA-G explained that racism and racial discrimination are related. While racism is an ideology about the superiority and inferiority of races and a practice that reflects that view to the point where such could become a system, racial discrimination refers to an act rather than a system, albeit the act might be occasioned by racism.
According to the body, racism and racial discrimination seem to have afflicted the African race more than any other. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and 400 years of slavery, it said, is stark evidence. It is upon this basis that in 2013, the UN declared an International Decade for the People of African Descent which speaks volumes about racial discrimination and its impact on the people of African Descent.
In Guyana, IDPADA-G said that special attention is being paid to the Decade. This is highlighted by the establishment of a coordinating mechanism, IDPADA-G which is responsible for coordinating the work of the African Guyanese community as they strive to realize the goals of the Decade. “The need for such a response has been questioned by some but vindicated by what played out in social media and elsewhere pre, peri and post the 2020 elections. The proliferation of media posts to the effect that ‘Black People’ cannot manage anything reeks of a sense of superiority, hence racism. Even worse were the various fates which were wished upon ‘Black People’,” the body recounted, adding: “All that was left to be done was the acquisition of state power for the institutionalization of the heinous out pouring of racism. We therefore live in a state where the political forces and the Government, in particular, are challenged to prove, by their actions, the commitment of Guyana to the goals of the Decade, goals to which past and present governments have subscribed at the level of the United Nations.”
IDPADA-G said that there can be no better time for the re-affirmation of that commitment and no better way than the praxis of good governance. It therefore called for such commitment and action noting that it stands ready to be a complementary civil society stakeholder.
