The Muslims of Guyana and Suriname

MUSLIMS IN GUYANA

• By Raymond Chickrie Published 07/17/2007 Guyana

MUSLIMS IN GUYANA: HISTORY, TRADITIONS, CONFLICT AND CHANGE

Introduction
The birth of Islam in Arabia and its later spread to South Asia and Africa had rippling effects not only on that region's social and political history, but international ramifications as it spread from there to other parts of the world, including Guyana. Islam travelled to the shores of Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad largely because of the institutions of slavery and indentureship.
Guyana is a multi-ethnic republic situated on the northern coast of South America (see Figure 1). The country is inhabited by nearly one million people who are heterogeneous in terms of ethnicity and religious affiliation. Amerindians are the indigenous people of Guyana. In the seventeenth century the country became populated by waves of immigrants brought in under colonialism which introduced plantation slavery and the indenture system. Thus the Dutch and later the British colonial mercantile interests shaped the socio-cultural environment of the country. Guyana remained a British colony until 1966 when it achieved independence, which marked the transfer of political power to the Afro-Christian population. However, the majority are of South Asian descent and form roughly 51% of the population (see Figure 2). Yet, they remained disenfranchised until the 1992 general elections.
South Asians, who are mostly Hindus and Muslims, have always had a cordial relationship among themselves. It would seem that these two groups had come to a mutual understanding of respecting each other's space while culturally and even linguistically identifying with each other. In fact, Hindus and Muslims share a history of indentured labour, both having been recruited to work in the sugar cane plantations. They came from rural districts of British India and arrived in the same ships. Furthermore, Muslims and Hindus in Guyana did not experience the bloody history of partition as did their brethren back in the subcontinent. Also, the lack of Hindu/Muslim friction in Guyana may be attributed to the Cold War and to their common foe--the Afro dominated government, which practised discrimination against them (for religious composition, see Figure 3).

MAP: Fig. 1. Guyana: administrative divisions, 1991.
According to the Central Islamic Organization of Guyana (CIOG), there are about 125 masjids scattered throughout Guyana. Muslims form about 12% of the total population. Today in Guyana there are several active Islamic groups which include the Central Islamic Organization of Guyana (CIOG), the Hujjatul Ulamaa, the Muslim Youth Organization (MYO), the Guyana Islamic Trust (GIT), the Guyana Muslim Mission Limited (GMML), the Guyana United Sad'r Islamic Anjuman (GUSIA), the Tabligh Jammat, the Rose Hall Town Islamic Center, and the Salafi Group, among others. Two Islamic holidays are nationally recognized in Guyana: Eid-ul-Azha or Bakra Eid and Youman Nabi or Eid-Milad-Nabi. In mid-1998 Guyana became the 56th permanent member of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC). Guyana's neighbour to the east, Suriname, with a Muslim population of 25%, is also an OIC member state.

The Afghan Muslims of Guyana and Suriname

• By Raymond Chickrie Published 08/17/2007 Guyana 

The Political Scene

Both Suriname and Guyana experienced political turmoil after independence from Holland and England. Guyana had an Afro dominated dictatorship, which marginalized East Indians while in Suriname several coups rocked that country's peaceful history. Remarkably, this cosmopolitan mixture held together under Dutch rule, but as independence approached, ethnically based political parties took shape, rallying supporters on racial lines. In Guyana racial tensions have spilled over into ethnic violence several times, but in Suriname consoctional democracy has worked. The Dutch pulled out in 1975, promising continued aid, but many Surinamese who were fearful of what happened in neighbouring Guyana to East Indians, decided to accept the offer of Dutch citizenship. Some 40,000 migrated to Holland in the months preceding independence. Today over 400,000 Surinamese live in Holland. In Guyana over half of its population migrated to the United States, Canada, England, Suriname and Trinidad. The dictatorship in Guyana ended in 1992 after the United States decided to support the democratic movement. With the end of the Cold War, the United States was no longer afraid of the opposition People's Progressive Party as the leadership of the PPP was accused of being communist sympathizers.
Their fears were in part justified, for Guyana and Suriname underwent a series of political and economic traumas in the 1980s. A coup in 1980 brought Colonel Desi Bouterse to power, and when 15 opposition leaders were executed in 1982, the Netherlands imposed sanctions. Then, from 1986, a guerrilla war broke out between boschnegers and the Paramaribo-based military regime. Civilian rule was only solidly re-established in 1991, and since then the country's fractious ethnic parties have formed more or less unstable coalition governments. The former dictator Bouterse, who has remained an influential presence, was indicted for cocaine smuggling by a Dutch court in 1997; the Surinamese Government refused to extradite him but in 1999 he was sentenced in absentia to 16 years.
Guyana and Suriname remain dependent on a handful of commodities: bauxite, sugar, timber, rice and bananas. Suriname continues to rely on Dutch financial support, which is decreasing and ever more conditional on democratic reforms. About half the population is estimated to live in poverty, and remittance payments from relatives in the Netherlands keep many families alive. This material poverty, deepening over the last decade, contrasts ironically with the country's extraordinary wealth of cultural diversity. Guyana on the other hand, has been experiencing positive economic growth since the liberalization of the economy in the 1990's. Violence continues to plague Guyana in which people of South Asian decent are mostly the victims. The police have also become victim of armed gangs. Suriname however, has remained relatively safe and stable.

Source: World Site Atlas, available online at: http://www.sitesatlas.com/Maps/Maps/403.htm