Dear Editor,
The Cuffy 250 Commit-tee is a new organization that is dedicated to encouraging socio-economic and cultural revitalization within the African Guyanese community and the fostering of ethnic and racial equality in Guyana. We start from two premises. First, that there are serious problems within the African Guyanese community that need urgent attention by African Guyanese themselves. While African Guyanese are part of the larger nation, given the fragility of the national political community, it is a mistake to ignore intra-group concerns and aspirations. Second, we feel that the Guyanese nation will go nowhere if it is not grounded in ethnic and racial equality, especially at the political and economic levels, and mutual respect at the cultural level. We are dedicated to the reversal of ethnic domination of all kinds and from all quarters. Hence part of our mission is to encourage self-empowerment and self-respect among African Guyanese as a prerequisite for respecting all races and as a defence against domination.
Cuffy 250 is made up of a group of Guyanese in the USA and Guyana who came together in 2013 to observe the 250th anniversary of the Berbice Revolt, led by Cuffy, against the slave system. We wanted to celebrate and draw inspiration from our foreparents who resisted slavery. We wanted people to remember that though enslaved against their will, they did not sit down and do nothing. They did not accept that they were born to be slaves. They resisted and fought back. But more than that, we wanted to draw attention to the deteriorating economic, political, social and cultural condition in the African Guyanese community today and to say to our people that just as your foreparents struggled to change their situation, we can do so today.
We held a big forum in Georgetown in August 2013. Over 400 people attended. We learned that things were not that good in the African Guyanese community. Education is in shambles; our children are not performing as they should. We learned that the economic situation is equally bad – high unemployment and not enough resources to start businesses. We learned that the social situation is the same. Our young people are the subject of police violence. Drugs and crime are taking over our community. Violence against women and children is on the rise. We learned that our people are not sufficiently conscious of their African heritage – their history and culture. In short, the African Guyanese community is in serious trouble.
There and then we decided that something must be done to turn back this situation. It is always very difficult to form new organizations. Many Afri-can Guyanese organizations are already doing valuable work. The political party representatives are trying their best. But we felt this work of checking the drift in our communities needs more hands.
We decided that we would do two things. First, we embarked on an education programme intended to make people more aware of our great contributions to humanity in general and to Guyana in particular. Towards this end we have held forums every two weeks in Georgetown. We started a weekly television programme, African Drums, on Channel 9 every Sunday at 8 pm. Second, we started to go into communities and work with them to use their own energies to correct the situation. We call it Self Activity and Self Reliance for Self Emancipation. In other words we are saying that people in your communities can use what they have to begin the process of revitalization. We went to Linden, to Dartmouth and to West Bank Demerara – Sisters-Good Intent, Stanleytown and Bagotville. Some of us, independent of Cuffy 250 went to Belladrum, Buxton, Melanie Dami-shana and Paradise-Bachelors Adventure. We encouraged people to form groups and begin to organize for change in their communities.
On Sunday March 30 we will continue that work. Cuffy 250, in collaboration with La Retraite/ Stanleytown Development Group, Bagotville Cultural Circle and Goed Intent-Sisters African Revitaliza-tion Movement, will hold a forum on ‘The State of the African Guyanese Com-munity’ from 2pm to 6pm at the Bagotville Com-munity Centre on the West Bank of Demerara. Under the theme ‘African Guy-anese Revitalization: Res-toring the African Guy-anese communities as spaces of Education, Culture and Economic Vitality’ the forum will focus on the state of education, the rising incidence of violence and the need for economic renewal in the African Guyanese community. Speakers will include Vincent Alexander, Carl Greenidge, Karen DeSouza, Eve Blackman, Jonathan Adams, David Hinds and Nigel Hughes.
This forum is intended to continue the discussion we have started. But more than that, we intend to use the occasion to plan how to begin to do real concrete things. Particularly, we want to do something about education, the economy and violence in the communities. We want to come up with a collective plan on how to get our children to begin to do well again in school. Let us think what a difference it would make if we can have a Cuffy 250 Community Education Programme in every village on the west side where our children can benefit from our best teachers and tutors. If we can get them to do better in education we will change a lot. We will decrease crime. We will get better jobs. We will become more conscious of our heritage.
Part of the conversation will be how to get more African Guyanese into the business sector – start our own small businesses. A big part of our poor condition is that as a community we are not making enough collective money. We are not producing on a large scale. We are not feeding ourselves. We do not have enough businesses in our community. We are not economically self-reliant. We are relying on others to feed us and employ us. We will also talk about how to deal with police brutality and how to stop the violence against women and children in our communities. Too much precious blood is being foolishly shed in our communities. There are too many fatherless and motherless children resulting from violence in our communities.
Many people have asked us – what can I do to make things better? Our answer is simple: Be part of what Dr Martin Luther King called the beloved community of change; han wash han make han come clean. Now is the time for us to be the change we want and need. Now is the time to show that we are the descendants of Cuffy. Let us all – teachers, youth, farmers, elders, nurses, women, housewives, men, students – make March 30 the beginning of a new day for African Guyanese on the west side. If we win this fight to better our conditions Guyana will be a better place.
Yours faithfully,
David Hinds
