Book review

Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana — Race and Politics in Two Plural Societies by Ann Marie Bissessar and John Gaffar La Guerre IN THE 1956-1976 period, the appeal to race was seen as strident and resulted in tangible inter-ethnic tension, particularly between people of African and Indian descent and characterised as the era of crisis in such relations.

In Trinidad and Tobago it covered the contentious elections of 1956 and 1961, which saw hostility between the two ethnic groups reach a high point.

In Guyana this period included the elections of 1957, 1961, 1964 and the allegedly rigged elections of 1968. In the years between the elections of 1961 and 1964, violent race riots erupted, pitting Afro-Guyanese against Indo-Guyanese.

The study asserts that in the period from the mid-1980s and beyond, the significance of race had changed in determining political alignments and outcomes. It seeks to analyse the determinants and influences which conspired to produce what it deemed “the transformation of the race factor”. Interestingly, this chapter (5) is titled “The Triumph over Race”, which has been attributed in Trinidad and Tobago to such factors as globalisation, changes in demographic ratios, the emergence of new elites spawned by changes in the education system and the economy, and the intrusion of gender.

In the case of Guyana, the death of Forbes Burnham and the demise of his authoritarian regime ushered in a period in which the new leadership of the Afro-Guyanese ruling party had to respond to international pressure for free and transparent elections and local demand for improved economic conditions and greater freedom yet it had to consolidate the support of the minority Afro-Guyanese population.

In this context in the two countries, racial alignments had to be re-engineered and modified and, in the process, the need to seek affiliations and forge accommodations and coalitions to win elections became imperative.

Consequently, the overt recourse to racial appeal had to be restrained, though coded messages continued to have significance.

This period saw the emergence of the NAR Government and later the PP Government in Trinidad and Tobago, which in effect were both coalitions. Guyana witnessed the return of the PPP/Civic coalition administration.

In terms of analysis, the study denotes a theoretical difference between race and ethnicity but seems to suggest ethnicity subsumes race and therefore the terms can be used interchangeably, which may lead to some uncertainty and lack of clarity.

It raises the question of whether ethnicity may be independent of race in determining political allegiance. Race may not always dictate the political party which a group or sector of it chooses to support as in the case of the urban Indo-Trinidadian Christian or Muslim who vote for the Afro- based political party.

It would appear that the latter group may be swayed by cultural and economic considerations (education, levels of interaction, religion, class etc) and hence ethnicity as opposed to race as influencing political identification.

Moreover, the issue of the political affiliation, and its basis, of the ever expanding mixed population needs more in-depth investigation in determining the salience of race as against ethnicity among this group. Support for a political party based on race would be problematic in light of their mixed background.

With political choice virtually restricted to two race-based political parties, it would appear that cultural affinity to the mass support base of either of the two major parties and hence ethnicity might be a more significant consideration in determining the political leaning of a majority of this mixed group.

The division of the study into specific periods and their general characterisation with respect to the relationship between race and politics may be convenient for the pur p os e s of general analysis but may tend to o b s c u r e the reality of latent ethnic consciousness.