Dear Editor,
Interracial marriages and interfaith marriages are and will be a continuous point of contention among Indians in Trinidad, Guyana and Surinam. When Indians historically refuse to marry within other races, cultures or religions they are labelled as racist (a catch all word) but that is not the case among the African / Black race on continental Africa. Continental Africans have a different view from New World Africans or westernized blacks or the Anglo-blacks of the Caribbean. Often in these three Caribbean countries Indians (where there is a large Indic population presence) even when they befriend, intermarry and politically support blacks they are still considered RACISTS. This latter viewpoint is unjustified. No matter what an Indian does in the West Indies including pulling out his spine and jugular on the table for every other race to walk on, it is never enough.
Firstly, Indians have historically not wanted to intermarry outside of their own Indian culture and this is a strong cultural trait among all Indians regardless of religion whether they are Christian, Muslim or Hindu. Indians have historically not even cared to marry within the British classes even when they were ruling in India otherwise the entire continent would have become somewhat (since whites and Indians are scientifically classed as Caucasian but socially, we are quite different at this point) mixed race as Latin America is today with its mix of mostly White, Black and Indigenous races. If we go far back into the ancient world people guarded their cultures, beliefs, religions and way of life as sacred. When Alexander the Great began to intermarry on the Asian continent his Greek men were extremely upset, as they probably should be, they were not racist in my view, they were guarding their Greek way of life they saw as supreme. Hindus have understood this and have regarded outsiders as Mlecchas, it means they are foreigners or outsiders, they eat meat, they cannot simply walk into your home and mandirs (temples) although current academia translate it all too simply as “dirty.” They were not racist they considered the British Mlecchas even as the British ruled over them. So, it has no historical supremacy of hierarchy attached to it. In case, it wasn’t obvious, Indians don’t even marry each other if we are of different religions because it is very difficult somebody’s God will have to compromise and usually it is the weak Hindu. Even Hindus sometimes don’t marry other Hindus in India (and we’re not even talking caste) because Hinduism is so vast there are more worlds within Hinduism than exists outside of it.
For Hindus, especially (and here I cannot defend Indian Muslims or Christians for in this regard they should be able to intermarry other races) the Hindu religion does not convert. We have no form of proselytization although to combat Abrahamic extremist missionary activities Hindus have had to resort to reversion of the Indians back to Hinduism which they call Ghar Wapsi (A return Home). Hindus do not convert, so for a Hindu to remain a Hindu and have Hindu children who will practice and carry on the Hindu way of life and the Hindu religion we must marry other Hindus. From here the cycle turns back on itself. Hinduism with no conversion can only marry go forward if Hindus marry Hindus and since Hindus do not convert then the only other Hindus around tend to be other Indians. It has absolutely nothing to do with race. Even then, there may be complications when non-Indian Hindus marry Indian Hindus, can we force an Italian Hindu to eat curry everyday? Can they force us to eat pasta everyday? The Hindu is like the Jew, race and religion go hand in hand. Breaking that is akin to what the white man did to slaves when he vanquished their culture and religion from practice. He replaced their black Gods with a white God and the whole system collapses and everybody ends up with all kinds of colonization problems mentally, socially, emotionally and otherwise.
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However, for the Afro-Caribbean searching for an answer to understand why Indians behave this way he should look no further than Mother Africa herself. On the continent of Black Africa interracial marriages between Indians and Blacks are viewed through different lenses by Black Africans. Here, the Indians are the immigrants and the minorities and if they would like to marry Africans it is frowned upon especially by those who continue to practice Native African religions. It is not viewed as positive or acceptable and is generally frowned upon. While a small percentage of continental Blacks are involved in interracial marriages the larger percentage of Africans are very apprehensive on the topic on tribal and race mixing even with each other. Even Africans who practice Christianity or Islam belong to different tribes with varying tribal beliefs that are quite as diverse and differ from tribe to tribe and country to country.
In Trinidad, Guyana and Surinam race mixing or interracial marriages are viewed by Blacks as an asset and they embrace it with gusto. They might be doing more damage to their own African pride and decolonization efforts than good. Some black Americans are so mixed when they marry white their children finally morph into whit in the last and final form so their African-ness and African features and their whole race disappears!
So, why do these two regions of Africans, Caribbean and Continental African, have different viewpoints about interracial and interfaith marriages? The Caribbean Blacks and the African Blacks are driven by strikingly different cultures and values when it comes to interracial and tribal and interfaith marriages. Even their views on education differ. Continental Africans are extremely educated and push their kids to become doctors and engineers as much as any Indian meanwhile Africans in America and the Caribbean are told (by white liberals) they need help, they need affirmative action thereby ironically undermining the African mind in the west from achieving their full potential. However, under conservative Republican politics, conservative African Americans are waking up to leftist lies and games but Afro-Caribbeans still getting fooled.
On the continent of Africa, the Africans are deeply governed by tribal and linguistic factors, beliefs and indigenous culture and religion, so much so that even African tribes do not intermarry among themselves much less marrying Indians. Continental Africans are afraid the mixing will destroy their cultural heritage, civilization and tribal languages similar to the Indian fears in the Caribbean of them losing their lineage, religion, beliefs and cultures. Tribes such as the Masai have distinct genetic features like being one of the tallest tribes in Africa, they prefer to marry other Masai so their can retain those desirable features and height is desired even in the West for aesthetics and sports. The Ndebele tribe wear ringlets around their necks to elongate their necks. Men in this tribe desire women who have these beauty features to foreigners with “regular” length necks, and thousands of other examples throughout Africa. Some have even said they absolutely do not find even white women good looking
The fact that Caribbean Blacks have NO tribal/ native religious lineage to guide their values is possibly and most likely due to slavery, even interracial marriages with Indians appears to be more desirable giving rise to a ‘ Dougla ‘ Race Culture. As such slavery is responsible for the difference in behavior which is to the disadvantage of all other cultures. Slavery and a colonized mind makes Africans in the west act differently from those in the East. They have been told to aspire to “whiteness,’ to aspire to a different religion’s ideals and white/ Middle Eastern Gods instead of black Gods. The Indian has similar problems aspiring to ‘whiteness’ but the Indian still has their Hindu Gods which structures their lives around Indian-ness. Instead of aspiring to marry white or Indian, Africans should aspire to return to their native beliefs which will provide a great Afro-centric structured world view based on putting African race and religion first.
Vassan Ramracha
