SEMINAR PRESENTATION ON ESTABLISHING AN ETHNIC RELATIONS
COMMISSION
SEMINAR DATE: AUGUST 22, 2002
VENUE: NATIONAL LIBRARY
By Prem Misir, Ph.D.
Introduction
Race & racism
Ethnicity
Duties of the Commission
Power of the Commission
What Should
We Expect From The Commission?
The Constitution (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 2000 amends the
Constitution by inserting immediately after Article 212,
a number of Articles from 212A through 212F, establishing
an Ethnic Relations Commission, its composition, a Tribunal,
its functions, annual report, and rules.
Introduction
White colonialists exerted control through structuring the
society along ethnic lines, that is, demarcating differences
between East Indians and Africans. Departure of these colonialists,
however, created a power vacuum which had to be filled by
the local citizens who were mainly East Indians and Africans.
But competition and struggle to occupy this vacuum was governed
by the divisive ethnic structures imposed upon ex-slaves
and ex-indentured servants in the colonial era. Some divisive
ethnic structures included sustaining a total institutional
structure for East Indians on the sugar plantations that
resulted in minimal interactions between East Indians and
Africans; restricting the marketing of African products;
using taxes paid by Africans to subsidize East Indian immigration,
in order to maintain a cheap labor rate, among others.
Today, these same divisive ethnic rules
are again applied for capturing the prized legal-political
stage which is control of the government and state. The
ethnic division observed today among ethnic groups has its
genesis in the brutal days of the colonial empire. But even
among the ethnic groups, there exist two class systems,
one, a society-wide class structure, and two, a class structure
for each ethnic group. In effect, there exists an inter-ethnic
and an intra-ethnic class structure. Class provides individuals
with differing social statuses and differing access to power.
Caribbean countries symbolize class, race,
ethnic diversity, ethnic cleavage and ethnic closure that
had their embryonic beginnings in the Colonial era; these
components have now achieved some degree of permanence.
East Indians and Africans were subordinate to the Europeans
under colonialism. Whites constituted the ruling class,
and Africans and East Indians were the ruled. But even among
the ruled subculture, dominant and subordinate relationships
were institutionalized through differences in job status
and religion. During the European conquest, cultural imperialism
as manifested in the dominance of European beliefs, values,
rules, laws, and sanctions, were complied with by both Africans
and East Indians who projected extreme deference to Whites.
Such undue deference had its price, for it enabled both
Africans and East Indians to view their own cultural make-up
as inferior to White culture.
In the Colonial period, Whites controlled
the legal-political stage, a prerequisite to sustain their
imperialist exploitation as the dominant group. Relations
between East Indians and Africans were neutralized and mediated
through Whites vis-a-vis a triadic (three-way) relationship
(Whites, Africans, and East Indians). East Indians and Africans
interacted and perceived this colonial society as if it
were a nation. Gerth and Mills (1977:176) reported that
Weber saw the nation as "...a community of sentiment
which would adequately manifest itself in a state of its
own." Africans and East Indians' notion of nation as
a community of sentiment was the same notion held by Whites,
largely influenced by the impact of cultural imperialism.
East Indians and Africans participated and complied with
a framework quite foreign to their own value system. In
effect, in the colonial period, the Whites' dominant value
system formed part of their concept of a "nation,"
toward which subordinate groups (East Indians and Africans)
displayed compliance and deference to White beliefs and
values.
The Whites unilaterally set up themselves
as a nation, and created a state to provide for the legitimate
use of force, in order to uphold their nationhood and power
interests. Africans and East Indians subscribed to this
White nation, but were excluded from being part of the nation.
Their cultural make-up was not an element in the Whites'
community of sentiment (nation). East Indians and Africans
were not a component of the state, as the state was used
as an instrument of the dominant White group against them.
Indeed, in the colonial epoch, Africans
and East Indians were "outsiders" in a society
that they helped to build. The departure of Whites from
these societies destroyed the triadic relationship among
Whites, Africans, and East Indians, thereby generating a
loss of the mediating White force among the subordinate
ethnic groups. The White exit meant that there was no East
Indian and Black nation. The White nation remained intact,
ensuring that East Indians and Africans continue to relate
to, and be driven by a White value system.
The White value system still drives many
Caribbean societies today. Loss of the White mediating force
had induced Africans and East Indians to use the society’s
ethnic diversity to their personal political advantage.
Caribbean societies characterized by these diverse ethnic
origins seem inevitably driven toward displaying racial
problems, more a product of race than ethnicity.
Race
& racism
It is widely accepted that racism is an ideology that depicts
another group as being congenitally inferior to one’s
own group. This situation of racial inequality is worse
when racism becomes injected into rules and procedures of
organizations that deny opportunities and equal rights to
certain racial groups or individuals; such a scenario is
referred to as institutionalized discrimination (Schaeffer
and Lamm, 1998:297). ‘Race’ refers to a group
of people who perceive themselves and are perceived by others
as different because of biologically-inherited characteristics
(Henslin, 1995:310). Biologically, it is not possible to
identify a genetically isolated group which has special
gene frequencies. Therefore, no ‘pure race` exists.
Even physical characteristics, such as, skin color, cannot
appropriately describe a group as distinctive from another
group. Examining a drop of human blood under a microscope
cannot indicate the race from which it comes (Schaeffer
and Lamm, op. cit.:288).
In addition, Schaeffer and Lamm (1998:288-289)
point out that migration, exploration, and invasion have
destroyed the concept of pure races, and have produced increased
racial miscegenation (mixed racial human products). Race,
therefore, is socially constructed by power holders through
stereotypical images to sustain the subordination of racial
minority groups. The biological characteristics of a person`s
race, as skin color, is given a social meaning by people
who control the levers of political and economic power
Ethnicity
Ethnicity denotes a group of people with common cultural
characteristics, as having the same language, place of origin,
and values; persons who share these cultural characteristics
belong to the same ethnic group. In this sense, ethnicity
refers to a person’s distinctive culture. An ethnic
group, also, has a distinctive ethnic identity (Curry, Jiobu,
and Schwirian, 1999:193), i.e., individuals have interpreted
their ethnic roles as integral to their self-esteem, sense
of control, and their ability to resolve problems. Ethnicity
refers, then, to a person`s distinctive culture and distinctive
identity.
Duties
of the Commission:
1). Promote elimination of racial discrimination and promote
equality of opportunity;
2).Promote good relations between different
people of different racial backgrounds;
3).Monitor the way the race relations law
is functioning and make recommendations for its improvements.
Power
of the Commission
The Commission should not be an inspectorate; therefore,
it should not have the power to police racial equality.
However, the Commission should have some power to enforce
the race relations law. Some of these powers should include:
1).Provide legal advice and assistance to the people who
think they have been the victims of discrimination. Please
note that the Commission should not rule on whether or not
discrimination has occurred; this ruling will have to be
given by an employer Tribunal or a Court.
2)The Commission should be able to investigate companies
and organizations where there is evidence of possible discrimination
and instruct them to make changes to their policies and
practices. The Commission should also be able to take legal
action against companies and organizations.
What
Should We Expect From The Commission?
1). For starters, we now have, however dormant, a law outlawing
racial discrimination. The Commission in enforcing this
law must ensure that people are not discriminated against
on the grounds of race, class, nationality, religion, or
ethnicity.
2).Focus should be on direct and indirect discrimination.
Direct discrimination occurs if a person is treated less
well than another person from a different ethnic background
would be in your situation. Indirect racial discrimination
occurs if people from a different racial group cannot meet
a rule or condition that applies equally to all. You will
have to demonstrate that the rule places you or people from
your racial group at a disadvantage. If this rule cannot
be justified, it will be classified as being indirectly
discriminatory.
3). Protection should be afforded against victimization
with regard to a person who brings a complaint of racial
discrimination, or for supporting another person's complaint.
4). The legislation should not cover racial prejudice. The
law should protect racial discrimination but not prejudice.
Prejudice is a prejudged attitude referring to a rigid and
irrational generalization about an entire group of people.
The Commission should focus on people's actions and the
effects of their actions, not their attitudes.
5). Protection to be meted out against racial abuse, harassment
and violence. Race violence is a criminal offence. Race
abuse and harassment should be made illegal if they are
not so already under the civil and criminal law. In cases
where there is incitement to racial hatred, these should
be seen as a violation of the criminal law on public order.
Such an incitement is really a police matter. And should
be so addressed.
6).The law should give the person the right to take his/her
perceived discriminatory case to an employment Tribunal
if it has to do with employment, or to a Court in all other
cases.
7). The Commission should conduct a formal investigation
associated with execution of its duties, where necessary.
Terms of reference for the investigation have to be determined
by the Commission. In a case where the terms of reference
of the investigation only pertain to activities of persons
named in them, then the Commission should (a) inform that
person of their belief and of their proposals to investigate
the acts in question and (b) give that person an opportunity
to provide oral or written presentation.
8). The Commission should require a person to furnish oral
and written information which could include documents in
that person’s possession or control.
9). Information including documents should not be required
by the Commission if such information will not be admissible
in the High Court.
10). The Commission should produce a report of the findings
of any formal investigation conducted.
11). Any information given to the Commission by any person
in relation to a formal investigation should not be disclosed
by that Commission.
As part of further expectations, the Commission
should be greatly involved in preventive work. The Commission’s
work could include efforts to educate and inform the public
and influence policies and practices in all organizations.
The following emphasis on prevention could be effected:
* issue codes of practice and racial equality standards.
Codes of practice need to be set up for (a) the elimination
of discrimination in employment, and (b) promoting equality
of opportunity in employment between persons of different
racial groups.
* Codes of practice should be developed jointly in consultation
with representatives of employers and workers and representatives
from other relevant bodies. These codes must be subject
to revision from time to time.
* The codes of practice may include guidelines as to what
procedures the Commission feels would be reasonable and
fundamentally fair for employers to introduce to prevent
their employees from doing acts that are unlawful during
their course of employment.
* Provide advice to all employers on how to prevent discrimination
and promote equality.
* Provide representations to the Government of the day on
race issues and on racial equality consequences of legislation
policies and practices.
·*Keep the public informed of developments in race
relations.
* Conduct research on the impact and degree of racial and
ethnic discrimination and other race and ethnic issues.
*Administer public education campaigns to create awareness
of race issues. Groups as ROC can play a major role in this
regard. In attempting to resolve race relations problems,
consciousness-raising has to be the first step.
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