Christian Hegemony Continues in Guyana

Posted July 30, 2003
Author: Swami Aksharananda
Source: Stabroek News, September 11, 1999

Dear Sir,

Article 1 of the 1980 constitution of Guyana enshrined in the constitution the principle of secularism. In a secular state there is, ideally, a separation between state and religion and there is no official state-sponsored religion. Secularism ensures that the state (a) takes no active or passive part in promoting or legitimising any particular religion directly or indirectly, and (b) conversely, the state takes no active or passive part in oppressing or delegitimising any particular religion directly or indirectly. All religions are considered equal under the law.

However desirable one may find this ideal, our very history conspires to circumvent it. The colonial state was in its very genesis a vehicle for the promotion of Christianity, the religion of the conquerors. But more than thirty years after independence there continues to be more than an implicit relationship between the state and Christianity. The state continues to function to consolidate and perpetuate Christian hegemony in Guyana.

This state-church convergence employs subtle forms of coercion to entrench its domination while at the same time it seeks to persuade the dominated segment of the population, mainly Hindus and Muslims, to give their consent to being dominated. It has almost totally appropriated and monopolised the power of defining and legitmising the principal orientations and basic limits of all activity and discourse.

But more pertinently, and certainly perniciously, this alliance is succeeding in the annihilation, subjugation, or marginalisation of all other religious orientations, again particularly Hindu and Islamic, that appear to constitute an obstacle to its consolidation of power while at the same time favouring the creation and development of those religious orientations and elements that fortify its domination. There is a silent subversion, generated by the deliberate collusion of Christianity and the state, of the fledgling tradition of secularism promised in 1980. Nowhere is this subversion more evident than in the field of education.

1. Throughout Guyana, state schools are used by a variety of Christian denominations, especially those with connections to American Pentecostalism, as churches. Pentecostals it will be remembered, more than any other Christian sect at this time, are engaged in the most vociferous and obscene condemnation of Hinduism and Islam. And in this the state is an accomplice.

2. The entire education system in Guyana is controlled by that dominant class that promotes westernised and Christian orientation. Having appropriated the power to define and delimit what is legitimate and not, this social bloc has monopolised the curriculum constructing it in a way that deliberately emphasises western and Christian mores while at the same time deliberately excluding and de-emphasising anything Hindu and Islamic in particular and Indian in general. By just going through the textbooks produced in Guyana one can hardly imagine that this is a country with half the population Indian.

3. Over the years there have been successful attempts through the instrument of the state to de-emphasise Hindu and Muslim contributions to the development of education in Guyana while at the same time re-inforcing and glorifying the Christian contribution. In 1976 all denominational schools (and other institutions) were required by the government of the day to change their names in order to delink them from their religious and ethnic background. While the government made sure that schools with Indian, Hindu and Muslim names complied with the requirement, Christian schools were never really affected. Thus Indian Educational Trust college became Richard Ishmael Secondary, Muslim Trust college became Brickdam Secondary school, Hindu college became Cove and John Secondary, Maha Sabha Secondary became Leonora Secondary. On the other hand, officially and otherwise, St. Stanislaus, St. Joseph's, St. Rose's, St, Agnes, St. John's, Sacred Heart, Stella Maris, Christ Church and others have retained their former names and their distinctive histories.

4. From a Hindu, and I am sure from a Muslim, point of view as well the most disturbing development in recent times is the return and arbitrary imposition of Christian prayers in primary and secondary schools in Guyana. Once again Christian power in collaboration with the state is asserting its hegemony. Hindu and Muslim students are forced to recite, under the threat of penalty, the Christian "Our father who is in heaven" prayer.

5. Under the guise of moral education in schools when a Hindu or Muslim child is forced to listen to a Christian functionary who by force of habit and dogmatic indoctrination must invariably, subtly and otherwise, denigrate the Hindu and Muslim traditions, this is in violation of the fundamental right and the civil liberty of the child.

6. Furthermore, this practice is in direct and flagrant contravention of Article 145 (3) of the Constitution of Guyana which unequivocally and unambiguously states : Except with his own consent (or if he is a person who has not attained the age of eighteen years, the consent of his guardian) no person attending any place of education shall be required to receive religious instruction or to take part in or attend any religious ceremony or observance if that instruction, ceremony or observance relates to a religion which is not his own. This travesty must not be allowed to stand.

Yours faithfully,
Swami Aksharananda