Afro Indo Unity: Can The Ganges Ever Meet The Nile? Part 4
By N Oji Mzilikazi
January 12, 2012
(Originally published in the Montreal Community Contact Volume 22, Number 01)
Tag: East Indians
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…
Afro Indo Unity: Can The Ganges Ever Meet The Nile? Part 1
Afro Indo Unity: Can The Ganges Ever Meet The Nile? Part 1
By N Oji Mzilikazi
November 24, 2011
(Originally published in Montreal Community Contact Volume 21, Number 24)
In the article, “Where Did Black Power Go?” in the previous issue of this newspaper, I mentioned that for more than 160 years the meandering paths of the Ganges and the Nile in the West Indies resulted in an inter-connected narrative. Lamented was that distrust, tribalism and ethnocentrism continued to colour the relationship between former African slaves and former indentured East Indians with virulent strains in Trinidad and Guyana…