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Afro Indo Unity: Can The Ganges Ever Meet The Nile? Part 2

Afro Indo Unity: Can The Ganges Ever Meet The Nile? Part 2

By N Oji Mzilikazi

December 8, 2011

(Originally published in Montreal Community Contact Volume 21, Number 25)

In “Trini 2 De Bone,” David Rudder’s 2003 paean to Trinibago, there is a telling line, “How we vote is not how we party.” Applicable to Guyana as well, that line encapsulates the underlying division and discord between Indo and Afro West Indians.

As much as members of both ethnicities party together, work alongside one other, partake of the culinary culture of the other, cohabitate, intermarry and have children with each other, when it comes to elections, Apan Jhaat – Hindi for “vote for your own kind” rules – irrespective to religious differences or long-standing religious hatred.

In the Indian sub-continent: Hindu India, Muslim Pakistan and Sikhs cannot stand one other.  They have continually engaged in acts of aggression and terrorism against one another and frequently threaten each other with war…