Middle-class backlash forced Guyana to abandon Africa-centered nationalism by 1971

Evidence

The emphasis on Africa conflicted with the culturally rooted aspirations and practices of the country’s middle class, a significant proportion of whom were colored. By 1971, a middle-class backlash forced the ruling party to abandon its ideology of Africa-centered nationalism. In response, ASCRIA leaders resigned their government posts and began a scathing campaign against the ruling PNC. In 1975, the ruling party was firmly established in an alliance with Eastern Europe. It was also heavily reliant upon the support of the East Indian business and organized religious sectors. Thus, in Guyana, creolite was less integral to nationalist representation and practice than it was in Trinidad. It was replaced by a much more institutional conceptualization of the nation. The nationalist space was occupied by those located in the institutions of governance and the domestic interests that they represented (see Hintzen, 1989:169-73). Thus, contestations over national identity became most manifest over access to the institutional resources of power. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3263

Categorization

• XREF: The middle-class colored backlash forcing abandonment of a racial-nationalist program parallels the logic of class-level interest overriding ethnic identification seen in other postcolonial nationalist studies.